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Nov 08, 2015Posted by Emily

Interview with ASOS – We chatted to Hunger Games star Sam Claflin about becoming a dad

The cutest thing ever happened last night. Sam Claflin and his megababe wife, Laura Haddock, turned up to the UK premiere of Mockingjay – Part 2 with a big surprise… the pair are expecting their first child! *squeal* We caught up with Sam in London today to chat all about the end of Hunger Games, what’s next for him and how he’s feeling about fatherhood.

Firstly, massive congratulations! Your announcement last night was pretty special… It’s all very exciting and it was amazing for Laura and I to do it on the world stage. I’m very, very lucky, that’s all I can say.

It’s the end of an era. What will you miss most about playing Finnick? I honestly was just happy to play someone who was so layered and complex. Basically every film that we did, I felt like I was playing a different character and that as an actor is a real dream come true.

How did you feel when you were shooting your final scene? It was a very tense few weeks in the run-up to that scene so it felt like another big finale for me. I was so insistent that I did all my own stunts but the truth is Jackson Spidell – who’s my stunt double – is on another level at using Finnick’s weapon in the latest movie: a massive stick. It was actually a trident but I honestly hated the fact that for the entire film I had to run around with a stick and everyone else got machine guns.

*MAJOR spoiler alert below*
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Oct 28, 2015Posted by Emily

Sam Claflin: ‘I hate being offered heart-throb after heart-throb’

Actors like to talk about their years in the wilderness before fame hit. Harrison Ford was a carpenter. Jon Hamm spent decades waiting tables. Channing Tatum stripped. It gives them some regular-Joe mass to weigh against their new celebrity. Sam Claflin, 29, star of The Hunger Games and Pirates of the Caribbean, is no different.

“Everyone has their struggles, I think. After I left drama school I had six months of rejection after rejection,” he says, sipping on a pint in Kentish Town, north London, in unseasonable autumn sunshine. “I thought about a plan B.”

Wait a second… Six months? Six months isn’t a period in the wilderness. In acting terms that is a mere long weekend of unemployment. After which Claflin was cast in Pirates of the Caribbean, Snow White and the Huntsman, then The Hunger Games and The Riot Club, the film version of the play Posh, a fictionalised version of the Bullingdon Club. This was in addition to TV roles in Any Human Heart and The Pillars of the Earth. By any actor’s standards, hardly a rocky road.

Still, it’s easy to understand where he’s coming from. The speed of Claflin’s ascent to matinée idol, courtesy of two of the biggest franchises of the 21st century, would embarrass any normal bloke. And apart from his career, everything about Claflin screams normal bloke. He is friendly and self-effacing, handsome and articulate. He complains about the trousers he’s wearing for our shoot being too tight for his “footballer thighs”. He was a promising junior player growing up in Norwich (you can still hear a faint Norfolk lilt in his vowels). There’s a swallow tattoo on his bicep that he got for his 28th birthday and only after years of planning. He lives in Chiswick, west London, with his wife, fellow actor Laura Haddock, because he’s “not cool enough for east London”.

Claflin says the trousers he’s wearing for our shoot are too tight for his ‘footballer thighs’
He certainly seems more at home outside a grim Kentish Town pub than he was being fussed over by make-up artists in the hot studio. Does he even enjoy the fashion shoots? “I fucking hate them! Well, no…” he adds, perhaps mindful of his PR obligations, “I just can’t understand why people would wear any of those things. But I’ve learned to enjoy myself on the day.”
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Jun 19, 2015Posted by Emily

Sam Claflin talks about playing a quadriplegic in new film

When Sam Claflin signed up to play a quadriplegic in his latest film Me Before You, he didn’t realise how much it would open his eyes to the struggles faced by disabled people.

The Hunger Games actor – who stars as a recently-paralysed man cared for by a small-town girl, played by Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke – initially thought the physical side of the role would hardly be a challenge.

Sam admitted: “I thought, ‘Do you know what, this is going to be so easy. I’ll be sat down.’ But the truth is, the hardships of being in a wheelchair, day in, day out are really starting to affect me.”

He revealed that he now notices uneven surfaces and “bobbles in the road” which would be a struggle for those in wheelchairs.

The Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides actor consulted with wheelchair-bound disabled people as part of his research for the role.

He explained: “We had the opportunity, and were fortunate enough, to meet and talk to a lot of people who were in wheelchairs and talk through their experiences. You realise life is short and we’re very lucky.

“So many of them are so inspirational and so many of their stories are inspirational.”

Sam also spoke of his disappointment at not getting the role of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Rogue One, admitting: “I can’t deny I auditioned, and they decided to go a different way.”

After rumours spread in April, “all of a sudden my phone was just ringing constantly for two days, people saying ‘oh my God you’re going to be Luke Skywalker!’ And I wasn’t Luke Skywalker.”

He added: “I’m a huge fan of the franchise and I wish them the best of luck. I hope my path and their path crosses at some stage.”

Me Before You will be released in June 2016.

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