Digital Spy interview - Will Merrick

As usual Digital spy published a new interview, now with Will.

It's time to find out more about Alo in this week's episode of Skins! You might think that he's just a drug-smoking slacker and, well, you'd be right. But we're about to find out a lot more about him! His mum's fed up of him wasting his time at college, so she decides that he should quit to work on the family farm instead. That probably won't go down too well... We rang up Will Merrick, who plays Alo, to find out more about the episode (there might be a couple of small spoilers!).

Can you give us an overview of the episode?
"Alo has started partying a lot more and he's started to go out and enjoy himself and that's how the episode really starts, with him having a lot of fun and not really taking any notice of responsibilities or school or anything, just really being a classic teen. And at this point his mum decides that her son should leave college because it's not even worth him being there, because he's not really doing anything. She's decided that it's his obligation to work on the farm with his dad - because they live on a farm just outside Bristol - and it's his duty and his responsibility to help his dad with the family business."

We haven't seen much of Alo yet - were you pleased to explore him more in this episode?
"Yeah. Him and Rich are really out of this love triangle that's going on, and Rich had his episode so you'd see more of him. But Alo at this point isn't really in any of the dramas, he's not really in any of the relationships, so he's quite an outsider in the series. And you get to see really what Alo's home life is like and what he's up to when all this is going on and his own problems and challenges and things he's got to deal with. So I loved it, I thought it was great. Up to that point I hadn't had a chance to explore Alo that much. It's always good to get to a character's roots because it's our environment that informs us so you get to see Alo's parents and his home and it helps you understand the character more."

How does Alo get on with his parents?
"Not too well! He's definitely a classic teenager, where he doesn't feel like he needs them and he feels like he's quite old enough to make his own decisions and live his own life now. It seems that before this they haven't had much discipline and he's done more or less what he's wanted. But now they've become very parenting so there's quite a tension, especially between Alo and his mum."

Do you think it's a realistic portrayal of parents and teenagers and their relationships?
"Yeah, I think it is, in the way of the complete lack of understanding for each other's opinions and views. They have completely different views and neither one understands or even tries to understand the other. There's no effort, there's just the pride and arrogance and the fact that their view is right and they're not even going to try to understand the other. You know when people have an argument but they're not even really talking about the same thing because they're not listening to each other? I think it really shows that."

Alo's mum seems awful - do you think she's justified in her behaviour towards Alo?
"I think she is justified. No, I think she's very unfair and I don't think she really understands Alo. She forgets the fact that he's still only 17 - he's just turned 17. He's just doing what every teenager did and he's just enjoying his life. The theme of the episode is growing up and she expects him to be an adult now. There are issues with his dad and his mum is worried about his dad, so she expects Alo to step up and be a man and take responsibility, which is a completely fair thing to ask. But she doesn't really listen to him, which is the problem. She makes no effort to compromise and I think that's where the war begins."

How does Alo and Rich's friendship change in this episode?
"Alo is very much dealing with these things on his own and then right at the end it all becomes too much and he goes to his safety net, which is Rich. And the guy that he could always rely on and the guy that was always there - up to this point it's been very much Alo and Rich against the world, they've been best friends for a long time and they're always there for one another - and Alo needs him and he doesn't get the response he expects when he asks for help because Rich has sort of moved on. It's a great scene because we see Rich has come out of this pride-driven, won't compromise [attitude] and has actually found happiness, and he's got a girlfriend and that's what he's really thinking about. That's quite a difficult scene because Alo wants to tell him all these things that are wrong and everything that's gone wrong but doesn't want to burst his bubble because he sees how happy Rich is."

There are quite a few emotional scenes in your episode, but it's got a lot of humour too. Did you like the funny side?
"Yeah, I loved it. That's what Alo's about and he's always been one of the funny characters. I think it's great because Skins can get very intense and a lot of the storylines are very deep and dealing with real hardships. So I see it as a sort of breath of humour halfway through the series to take it a bit easier and go a bit lighter - even though it does come crumbling down as it always does! I think Skins does humour really well so I think it's great."

You have an over-the-top masturbation scene in your episode - was that quite embarrassing to film?
"Not really! I don't exactly know why. I remember asking myself at the time, 'Why am I so relaxed with this? This is worrying'. I love that scene, I think it's great. It's classic Alo. He can't do anything normally - not even have a w**k normally. It has to be a little bit different and he has to be a little bit more adventurous. It's all a lot of fun to him. But no, I didn't find it embarrassing. It's a natural occurrence in a teenage boy's life and a lot of people shy away from it, but at the end of the day everyone's doing it! I think it's good to get that taboo out there."

There's a flour and egg fight in this episode - what was it like filming that?
"That was a lot of fun. It was a bitch to get out because we had to film a scene from earlier on in the episode afterwards. So we had this massive fight - I don't know if you've ever been caked with flour and eggs and milk, the milk was probably the worst - and it's quite difficult to get out of the face and the hair, so that took quite a while. So continuity was a mess! But it was great fun. They just really let us go and let us do whatever we wanted and I think that's probably why it looked so good."

Do you think the group are coming together more now?
"Yeah, definitely. The group really come together in Alo's episode. It's one of the first episodes where we see everyone partying together happily. That's built up throughout the series and as you'll see in the last episode, everyone's very united. Everyone really comes together."

Labels: artigo , Brand New , interview , Skins season 5 , Will Merrick