How would your describe your character of Elliot?
It’s has taken me a long while to figure out who he is – it’s part of the process. Basically he’s the oldest brother in the family and he’s got two younger siblings, a younger sister and his younger brother, so he has to protect the family. He’s almost a fundamentalist in that he will protect his family to the dying day, until he’s in ultimate pain, until everything’s gone wrong. He says even until we are starving. Until he can’t handle a moment more of it, he’s going to protect them. He thinks the whole way through that it’s for the best and that he’s doing it for their own good.

Why do you think that he has this extraordinary motive to keep the family together and protect them?
He’s seen what can happen when it goes wrong. In the past they’ve had problems with the social services and the last thing that he wants is for his family to split up. We had a Social Services person come in and talk to us, and he said that, although the family hypothetically could be split up, it’s not very likely. But Eliot has this skewed view of what’s going on, he’s got a very clichéd perception. He doesn’t want to mix with authority, he doesn’t like the police, he doesn’t like neighbours, he doesn’t like anyone else, he doesn’t like social services workers, he doesn’t like anyone intruding. So he’s got this idea of a terrible Social Services man coming in, tearing their family apart. So he’s protecting them from what he thinks is the worst thing that could happen: his family getting split up.

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