Lola Petticrew on ‘I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning’ and Politics

There’s a long list of reasons why Lola Petticrew jumped at the chance to read for Clio Barnard’s stirring kitchen sink drama I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, and Anthony Boyle’s name sits at the top of it.

Honoring Petticrew’s loving nickname for their fellow countryman, “Anto,” star of Netflix hit House of Guinness, was already attached to the project. The Northern Irish duo have known each other since they were 11 years old — they performed together in an amateur drama group called The Rainbow Factory in Belfast — and became, as Petticrew puts it, “the best of friends.”

After years spent leaning on one another through drama school, Petticrew’s first job (in which they played brother and sister) and back-to-back auditions, Boyle and Petticrew now find those two kids from west Belfast are about to premiere what will undoubtedly be one of the Croisette’s most talked-about films: Barnard’s fifth feature, written by Enda Walsh (Die My Love) and adapted from Keiran Goddard’s book of the same name, is a tender deep-dive into class mobility, identity and existentialism.

“I got a message from my agent being like, ‘Clio Barnard wants you to read for this film,’ ” Petticrew, best known for their BAFTA-nominated performance in FX’s Say Nothing, remembers about the initial call. “So Enda Walsh has written it, Clio’s directing it, and my best pal is the lead? Like, tick, tick, tick!” they bellow over the phone to The Hollywood Reporter. “Do you know what I mean?”

That chemistry read with Boyle — their characters in I See Buildings, Patrick and Shiv, are married — was, figuratively and a little literally, child’s play for the pair. “It’s the biggest gift ever to go in to work every day and just be looking at your best mate,” Petticrew tells THR.

It also helps that Barnard enlisted an almighty batch of Britain and Ireland’s brightest young stars: Joe Cole, Daryl McCormack and Jay Lycurgo round out the core five, all of them anchoring Walsh’s script with a frailty and authenticity you’d expect from talent twice their age. The Birmingham-set indie follows five childhood friends who, as they hit 30, tackle the bleak reality of life in varying ways.

“I think it’s British independent film at its best,” declares Petticrew. “This is just completely the type of project I want to be a part of. It feels like they’re caught on this hamster wheel, and they just can’t get out of it. They can’t see the forest for the trees, and all of the emotions are up,” they say about the boys’ roles. “Shiv is kind of like a seer. She’s in the middle of it all, and she’s grounded. I remember reading a part in the book where it was talking about how much Shiv loves her flat, and it just made me cry my eyes out — I just thought how wonderful it was that she could see the beauty in it all, because that’s absolutely the way I felt about my house and my community growing up, and it’s the way that I still feel about it now.”

Petticrew is a self-proclaimed activist. They speak up on the intergenerational trauma still rife in Northern Ireland post-Troubles, west Belfast’s poverty problem and Palestine. “I wouldn’t be interested in being an artist if I couldn’t talk about those things. For me, they’re intrinsically linked,” they say, railing against the creatives who choose to separate politics from their work. For them, I See Buildings’ community-focused narrative — about one’s loyalty to their origins, the resentment that simmers when you can’t escape it, and the guilt when you leave it behind — tapped into that thirst for change. “There are a lot of actors — many whom I really admire — [that] are now coming out and saying they don’t want to be political,” says Petticrew, who considers it a privilege to be apolitical. “It’s a sorry state of affairs when artists don’t really believe in anything … But when they want their BAFTA or their Oscar or their Golden Globe for playing somebody poor or, fucking God forbid — please, no more — playing a trans person, or playing somebody queer, then they’ll talk about it. It’s a disgrace.”

I See Buildings was an antidote. The cast embedded themselves in Shard End, east Birmingham, where the film was shot. The locals spilled onto the call sheet as pub-goers, parents and school children. It undoubtedly helped all five of them — three of them Irish, remember — nail that Brummie accent. “It’s a really tough accent,” Petticrew admits, “and I know how much of your identity is locked into your accent. So I really, really, really wanted to get it right.”

They’re due back in Rome straight after the festival to continue shooting Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed series, and have a Hulu show, Furious, coming soon with Jake Lacy and Emmy Rossum. But Petticrew is prioritizing platforming British film, and with Anto in tow, hopes their performance can provide solace to any lost souls in Cannes this week: “We’re all just trying our best with everything that’s against us,” Petticrew adds. “It’s OK to give yourself a bit of credit, take a breath, and just see what’s in front of you.”