Eddie Marsan: 'UK must make more films like The King's Speech'

Eddie Marsan has called for the UK film industry to make more movies like The King's Speech.

Speaking at the London Film Festival launch, the Sherlock Holmes and Happy-Go-Lucky actor said that midlevel-budgeted productions are struggling to get off the ground.

He told Digital Spy: "The films between £1 million to £3 million seem to be getting made because the investment is such that people aren't taking too much of a risk.

"The massive films, £80 million onwards seem to be made because if you spend that £150 million on a film you can spend £150 million on promoting it.

"The budget of films like The King's Speech - films like that we should be making more of because they're the Ealing Studios films for our generation. They're the backbone of the industry. These are the films we need to put money into."

Marsan's independent movie Junkhearts, about an ex-soldier who befriends a homeless girl, will premiere at next month's LFF. The actor called it an "uplifting film" and one to which the festival has reacted positively.

"The London Film Festival have seen it and said, 'We love it, we're going to champion it'. So for us it's really reassuring, you suddenly realise you might have made a good film," he explained.

"We think we have but we never know until someone sees it. It's already going to be seen in London, but it may be seen internationally."

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Watch Digital Spy's Eddie Marsan interview below:



Interview by Stella Papamichael