KIERON MOORE IS ENTERING THE RING. WELL, RE-ENTERING IT. THE ACTOR TRADED THE BOXING GLOVES FOR ROLES IN TWO OF THE QUEEREST PROJECTS OF THE YEAR. YOU’D THINK HE’D HAVE WHIPLASH, BUT FOR MOORE, IT’S NOT SO DIFFERENT. “IT’S ALL PERFORMANCE, YOU HAVE TO CONVINCE YOURSELF YOU’RE SOMETHING BEFORE YOU GO IN THERE.” “IN THERE” COULD BE INTERPRETED IN MANY WAYS HERE. PERHAPS IT’S GOING IN THE SHOWERS OF THE MILITARY CAMP IN THE RECENTLY RELEASED BOOTS, WHERE DISCIPLINE GETS SLIPPERY. OR MAYBE IT’S GOING IN ON HIMSELF, PIXEL BY PIXEL, IN THE UPCOMING INDIE MOVIE BLUE FILM, WHERE HE PLAYS A DUPLICITOUS CAMBOY. EITHER WAY, MOORE’S NOT AFRAID TO GET MESSY WITH MASCULINITY, DESIRE, OR WHATEVER’S LEFT IN BETWEEN. WE TALK TO THE ACTOR ON A CLOUDY AFTERNOON IN LONDON, VERY DIFFERENT FROM WHERE WE LAST CAUGHT HIM, HIS BARE BODY DUSTED WITH SAND AFTER A SUNNY DAY AT THE BEACH.

Left Shirt **Mithridate by Daniel W. Fletcher**
Right Full look **Dsquared2**

Hello! How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Your hair is really hairing. I wish mine were better.

No, my hair is a mess. I just broke up with my barber. I've been struggling to find one.

Oh, yeah, it's a tricky one, isn't it? That's my favourite thing about booking a job. When I first started acting, I saw jobs as a way to find my perfect hairstyle, but it actually did the opposite. You start getting feedback from fans, and then they can’t agree if something is hot or if I look nerfed.

It honestly sounds like great motivation. You get a gig to try and figure out the next step on the haircut journey. Speaking of other journeys, I was so surprised to hear of your boxing career. You started quite young, right?

I started when I was five. My dad always wanted to be a boxer. Growing up, he was uber masculine, so he boxed a bit. He always wanted to be a professional boxer, but he was a good footballer, and my mom always thought he was too handsome for boxing. When I was five years old, I watched a VHS tape of my dad’s first boxing match. The scene in that VHS made my dad into a hero – he won the fight. After, he does this stupid celebration where he walks around the ring with his hands out. I started running around the house doing the same thing, saying I wanted to box. It was music to my dad’s ears.

They took me to a gym where I started in a kids’ class a few days later. I got pretty good pretty fast. You’re so moldable when you’re five. I got a lot of love through boxing. By the time I was ten, I was good, but you couldn’t compete in England until you were 11. But in Wales, you can fight when you’re 10, and my mum’s grandma was from there, so we lied and said I lived with her so I could start boxing. Looking back, it’s quite barbaric but also hilarious. I competed on and off until I was 21, but I fell out of love with it by the time I was 15.

Full looks **Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello**

What triggered that disenchantment?

I was very sensitive as a child. I always knew I wasn't like the other boys. I just didn't have that bite about me. I was good and everyone told me I was good, but I didn't necessarily believe it. My dad was a constant reminder of the fact that I needed to be tougher, which caused a lot of problems between us. But then, at the same time, it was through it that I got so much love. I learned early to manipulate that and get what I needed from my dad through boxing. This is not negative towards him; we’re working class. He just didn’t want me to have the same life as him.

It’s interesting to hear you speak of boxing and your love for it, as something you performed for so long. Do you think that informed your future career choice?

In both, you have to convince yourself you’re something before you are. When you're boxing, they call it a square circle of truth for a reason. You’re in there with yourself. If you want to be a champion, you have to convince yourself before you do it. You have to convince the opponent you’re not really hurt – it’s all performance. When I started acting, people would say it’s similar because of the discipline. But it’s the belief, the self-convincing. Boxing, like acting, is also quite lonely. As much as you strive to connect, everything you do to prepare until you perform is by yourself.

Is there something in the physicality of the sport that you think influences the way you approach your craft?

I think everything's quite internal. Boxing told me to be in myself and how you can project confidence or sort of fake swagger. Boxing taught me what it meant to live in fear. Everyone asks me if I miss boxing, and I do. I miss people trying to hurt me because it makes me present and alive. When I started to act, there was something in that space that felt more familiar but way more dangerous, way more intoxicating. There’s an extreme vulnerability with acting. It replaced that thing I got from boxing. When I get a job coming up, I’m so anxious, it’s like living in fear in the gym before a fight. Everyone tells me that it doesn’t sound enjoyable, but to me, that’s the best bit. It makes me aware of everything that everyone else is doing around me, rather than just sort of slowly thinking about myself.

I can hear your passion for acting in your voice. How did you first discover it?

I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life. Well, I guess not terrible, but I have just made my life go in very different ways. When I was 18 to 21, my life got away from me a little bit. I quit the thing that I was told I was going to be. I started working at a law firm. I’d done a bit of modelling and I got obsessed with it. I was doing a lot of stuff in video. It was something I thought I could do in the back of my head, but I never made the link. And then I had an epiphany. It was pissing down raining, it was 8 PM, and I’d been at work since 8 AM. I sat there and I cried for 30 minutes. I thought, “Is this all there is?” I thought about what I was good at, and I’ve always been good at lying. I was good at making people think I'm ok. I realised I’m a good actor. They thought I could be a lawyer. They believed I was going to be a boxer even when I knew I wasn’t. After that moment, I never looked back. I didn’t tell anyone, but I enrolled in a school after work.

I want to touch on Boots, it’s such a special show. What was your first reaction to a story so unique?

I liked how you can draw different things from it. At first, I instantly thought of Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead. And then there’s another side of it, this Orange is the New Black vibe. I was invested instantly. From a very early read, I could tell it had the potential to be special. It’s been so nice to see people liking it. The trailer is fantastic, but it’s not a huge representation of the show. When you turn the show on and you allow yourself to sit with these people, it’s quite moving. It’s these men who shouldn’t be in the same room coming together, finding the ability to support and try to understand each other. Taking myself out of it, it’s been such a pleasure to see the boys happy. They all deserve the celebration they’ve been getting. I’m not surprised. It’s a good show, it’s a necessary show. We don’t get to explore a lot of these themes all the time. We’re all so different from our characters, but there’s so much love from everyone. I hope you can feel it. The world needs a little bit more of that right now, especially from men to other men. All we can do is hope people give it a chance.

I think people have – everyone loves it, including myself...

All you can do is hope it makes an impression. It’s based on a real memoir. How lucky are we to be part of this story? Even if they might not love my character. But I think we do a beautiful job of humanising him, but not too much. We just want to let you know he’s broken. From early on, you root for some of the boys, but by the end, I think you root for all of them. Even that, inspiring people to want others to succeed from their couch, that’s something I would love to keep doing. By watching TV and film, I have learned a lot about myself.

That’s the joy in art. It exposes us to ourselves.

That’s literally it. The audience goes to the theatre to watch themselves: their desires, their fantasies, to face things they may not want to be reminded of. We all live such fast-paced lives, it’s easy to get lost. We don’t always get the opportunity to reflect. We might have it in the back of our head, but watching something, looking at a painting, reading a poem, listening to music, it can inspire a thought of, “Let me put more energy into that.” They dare to challenge us.

Speaking of complex characters and narratives, your upcoming project, Blue Film, has received amazing reviews in the festival circuit. It feels like that would be quite a daunting feature to tackle. How did you approach it?

Oh my god, I was terrified, absolutely terrified.

I can imagine, I feel that way even about seeing it for the first time…

Some people went into the screening blindly. You've got to see it as it best suits you, but it’s a difficult watch. It’s definitely a piece of cinema that is not for the faint-hearted. It’s not for people who want a casual view; it’s for those who want to surrender to the idea that you’re allowed to be uncomfortable. The premise of it absolutely terrified me. The strike had just finished. When this script came through, I wanted to prove I could do it. There’s a bit of ego in there. But it scared me, I thought, “Is this a choice that’s going to haunt my career?” But then, I don’t want to be famous; I want to be an artist.

That’s refreshing to hear. It’s easy to make actors into merchandise if you’re not careful. It’s good to hear you reclaim your artistry outside of the industry itself.

Yeah, they have us on meat hangers. But I think there's this need to create, or to at least exert us to get something out of us. Sometimes mine's words, but there are a lot of things in there that I strive to explore and understand, or just simply give space to.

…

KIERON BOOKLET - ORDER HERE

Interview by Pedro Vasconcelos

Photography by John Armour

Fashion by Michael Miller

EIC Michael Marson

Special Thanks to Richard Tuset & Dominic Holroyd