Jason Watkins on playing Christopher Jefferies

“What really struck me about doing the film is how shocking it is that a line can be crossed in an instant, and a life is ended”

I’d worked a lot with Roger Michell at the National and the RSC. He texted me and said, “I’ve got this script – do you think you could impersonate Christopher Jefferies?” I spent three days watching footage of Christopher and felt I could. I got myself a roll-neck jumper. I didn’t put a wig on but I did put pencil on my eyebrows… like a sort of variety turn, because Roger had asked “Can you impersonate him?” and I sort of ran with that.

Now if Christopher and I do any interviews together, I will turn into him by the end of the interview. He’s so eloquent and a joy to listen to. If you haven’t had as full an education, you can feel a little bit inferior, perhaps. Roger, who was at school with him, did find it hard when we were filming because I was so much like Christopher that he felt a little intimidated by me.

Certain elements of the press cast him as someone who was capable of committing such a crime and showed pictures of him looking like that kind of person. We now know that he is absolutely the opposite of all that. The whole film is about perception. The hair didn’t help him. It’s true that he used hairspray but he’s not aware that’s unusual- his points of reference are not what most people would have. I don’t think he is aware of how eccentric he is. There’s this odd, slightly over-elocuted accent that he’s got. You’ll ask a question and there’ll be a pause, just while he’s framing his response and that can sometimes be seen as incriminating. That’s possibly what the police felt.

I kept asking Christopher, “When were you most upset? When did it really hit you? When did you feel most threatened?” He said he felt worried that he might be being fitted up. There is a moment when he’s lying in his cell, and his eyes have gone a bit – he mentioned feeling very alone and most vulnerable at that time.

I’ve got four children. Two boys, Freddie and Pip (18 and 16, with my first wife) and a daughter, Bessie, seven, and a two-year old, Gilbert, with my wife Clara (a jewellery designer). I do understand horrendous trauma, grief and loss [Watkins and Clara lost their second daughter when she was two and a half, to flu]. Every case is different, but I do understand how Joanna’s parents feel. Their grief is much more public so I can’t imagine that, but I do know what it is like to lose a child and it was horrific and it happened  to us the same Christmas as these events.

So I understand that – not understand, I feel it – and have it in my bones every day of my life. We both do. So that my commitment to doing this job was to be absolutely, utterly ruthless on working so hard on it, and being so accurate and employing my whole being. Does that sound like crap? [He clears his throat…]

What really struck me about doing the film is how shocking it is that a line can be crossed in an instant, and a life is ended, or something can be written down and printed and what impact that can have on a life.

Radio Times