MacKay doesn’t have an answer, but he picks projects that ask the question.īefore playing Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang, MacKay measured every meal for months to physically transform into the skeletally thin outlaw. “Is it what you feel most truthfully? Do you build that off what other people think or say, and does that move and change with the context that you're in, and the experiences that you have as you grow?” If there’s a through-line in his career, MacKay says it’s that he’s fascinated by the complexities of what makes a person who they are. Now 29, he’s gradually emerged as one of the most skilled actors of his generation, distinguished by his unusually thoughtful approach to selecting roles and an all-in preparation style. Speaking over Zoom, MacKay radiates quiet confidence through the screen. No, MacKay struggled most with the idea he couldn’t push his performance, the most intensely physical of his still-rising career, even further.

Never mind that the actor’s knuckles had blistered “like mad” by the end of filming, or that Jacob is eventually caged, muzzled, and attacked with a cattle prod by the clinic’s sadistic director (Paddy Considine). “Coming up against those impossibilities, and particularly - putting all your weight forward, having your head closer to the ground - was the hardest thing, because it's so much weight at the front of your body,” he recalls. Focus Featuresįor MacKay, the most challenging part of playing a wolf was accepting the physical limitations - he calls them “shortcomings” - of being human. “Our knees do that, and wolves’ back legs do that, so you can’t do with the same ease.” “Literally, your bones your knees go like this, and your joints are in the other direction,” says the actor, gesturing frustratedly with his arms. Of course, he’s been practicing such are the peculiarities of promoting director Nathalie Biancheri’s riveting new indie drama Wolf, about patients at a “species dysphoria” clinic who endure grueling therapies meant to convince them they’re not animals.īut as MacKay demonstrates, his lead performance as Jacob - a patient who believes he’s a wolf trapped in a man’s body - could ultimately only go as far as his body would sustain it. Elbows back, wrists curled, fingers bent, back arched, head lowered, and shoulders raised, MacKay has slipped into this painful-looking position with a grace that’s both astonishing and slightly alarming.

It’s a Sunday afternoon, and the acclaimed British actor ( 1917, Captain Fantastic) is hunched over in his seat, modeling the stance of a wolf crouched down to lap water from a stream - or at least giving it his best effort. George MacKay can’t go full wolf, but he’s getting close.

Wolf girl with you walkthrough