Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels star Nick Moran discusses the film's staying power and cult status with TEN.
1998's Lock, Stock was Guy Ritchie's feature film debut and screened as part of the JDIFF cult film club. We caught up with star Nick Moran to find out why the film has stood the test of time and achieved cult status.
Moran revealed that he always knew the film would be a success, "I did yeah, we all knew it was going to be a great film, that it was going to be really good but because it was so independent, it had nothing to do with the British film industry at all so no one had heard of it."
He continued, "There was very low expectations from the industry because it wasn't from BFI or British Screen or Film 4 or any of those guys, it was just Matthew Vaughn as a producer went around with a cloth cap and scrounged together the budget and made this completely independent film. We all knew it was going to be great and there was an element of 'told you so' when it came out to such success."
The film wasn't only Ritchie's first feature film with Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones also making their big screen debuts, "It's no great surprise that 15, 16, 17 years later that people are still impressed by it because if you look at the pedigree of the people who made it and what they've gone out to do.
"Matt Vaughn and Guy (Ritchie) have really conquered Hollywood with their big franchises and me and Dexter (Fletcher) directing our own movies that have been really well received, and the rest of the guys and the careers that they've had as a consequence. There's a really amazing coalition there and I don’t think the film has aged at all. When you watch it you don't see it as an old film, the way I would have at the time looking at '60s movies, 'It's great but it's a '60s film'. You don't look at Lock, Stock as a '90s movie, it could've been made last week."
