Earl Cave: ​“Celine’s clothes are kinda rock’n’roll, which is a big inspiration”

It’s 9am and Earl Cave is zooming in from his bedroom. It’s giving ​“dressed-down Friday” but, to be fair, it’s almost cocktail hour where he is (Bangkok) and he is ​“kind of” on holiday (and it is actually Friday).

His girlfriend, fellow actor-slash-occasional model Devon Ross, is shooting a film in Thailand, ​“so I’ve come along for the ride. I mean, it’s pretty mad out there,” Cave says, pivoting his laptop to give a view of some teeming city streets. ​“It’s a real assault on the senses. I’m loving it. It’s Singha beers and massages and reading the odd script,” he adds, grinning. ​“I get why a lot of Brits pack up and live over here.”

As seen in his latest project, the 22-year-old can also serve serious cool. He’s the star of the new Celine campaign, shot by creative director Hedi Slimane amidst the Rodins held by the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nice. Both photographer and model have proper musical pedigree: Slimane as enthusiastic court snapper for the indie sleaze era, Cave as the son of Nick Cave and a sometimes musician himself. All of which made for an instant shorthand between the pair.

“Working with Hedi is pretty effortless,” says Cave, who’s quickly racked up an impressive acting CV, from smart indie films True History of the Kelly Gang (with FACE fave George MacKay) and Simon Bird’s Days of the Bagnold Summer, to cult streamer projects The School for Good and Evil and The End of the F***ing World.

“We do have very similar tastes in music and things in general, so we get along well. It’s very relaxed working with him – it’s nothing too flashy, and he takes beautiful, quite sensitive photos. And Celine’s clothes are kind of rock’n’roll, which is a big inspiration to me.

The label’s cut, too, is a good fit for Cave, literally and figuratively.

“The cut is very skinny in a lot of stuff. It’s classic and unbranded, which is important for me. I’m not a big fan of brands, so to work with Celine is nice because they don’t use logos too much. It’s very sleek and chic, but then also gives room for myself to, you know, come out of it.”

And he has good advice on tap. There’s his mum Susie Bick, herself a former model and, now, a fashion designer. Plus, given that Ross shares both Cave’s day job and side-hustle, she’s a good sounding board when it comes to such non-acting opportunities. ​“I mean, I’d be nowhere without her and her help,” he says with a grin, sweeping his shoulder-length hair behind his ears. ​“Girlfriend knows best!”

Equally, the Celine collab comes at a judicious moment in Cave’s style evolution. ​“I’ve dressed all different ways in my life,” he says, which is hardly surprising given his parentage, ​“but now I’ve started to slowly try to work it out.”

Speaking on the day that his latest film is also released – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, with proper legends Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton – Earl Cave has also worked out a pretty smart path through the acting world, as his Call Sheet answers prove. Although we’re not sure Nicholas Hoult, another Kelly Gang co-star, would entirely agree…

The film that made me want to get into acting is…

Little Miss Sunshine. I watched Paul Dano in that when I was a kid, and I just thought he was the coolest guy ever. I still aspire to be somewhat like Paul Dano! That amazing scene where speaks for the first time and screams ​“fuck!”… I think that’s the probably the best fuck ever said.

The first time I performed on stage was…

Bugsy Malone at school when I was about 12. I was one of Fat Sam’s goons. I got to pie someone, which was quite fun. That’s where the spark came in.

The first time I performed on screen was…

On [2018 film] Old Boys, I was ​“Betting Boy Number One”. My single line got cut, but if you freeze it, you do see my little face in there. They came to my school to audition people and I’d just been kicked out of the school where they were filming it. I was thinking: ​“Holy shit, I can go over there, not as a student, and flip off the headmaster!” I saw these kids doing all these Shakespearian, theatrical auditions and it didn’t seem like [the producers] were looking for that kind of acting. So I just sort of spat my lines at them, they thought it was good, and they gave me the role. And I got my revenge!

My plan B was…

At school, I was really into English. I romanticised the idea of studying English and maybe even becoming an English teacher. Maybe I’m thinking of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society… Teaching kids? Sounds alright, right?

The part that got away…

This ended up being actually a very happy situation that worked out even better: on End Of The F***ing World, I auditioned for Alex Lawther’s role, the main character. It was between me and him. And when he got it, they were very kind and they didn’t want to just shove me away. So they wrote this character Frodo, which ended up being really amazing for me. It was a small scene but I loved the character and he was so hilarious, so I had to do it. That’s a character that got away, but it couldn’t have worked out any better.

The funniest thing that happened on set was…

On True History of the Kelly Gang, this sequence of weird accidents kept happening to Nicholas Hoult. Charlie Hunnam was also on that film, and he’d just been on this bike ride through the bush and was raving about it. He told Nick to go do that. So Nick goes on his bike ride in the bush – and he starts getting swooped by magpies! Then he crashes into a tree and splits his face straight down the middle. So he’s got this scab going straight down his face. Then, a blank shot him in the eye, so there was gunpowder in his eye and this tear came out. It was beautiful, it worked really well for the shot. Then afterwards, I was saying goodbye to Nick and gave him a hug. And my jacket got caught on his lip scab, and ripped the entire thing off his face. And he was just like: ​“faaaaahk!” It was just the most funny thing.

The best piece of advice I got in the industry was…

Working in Rome with Matthew McNulty on [Sky’s 2021 Ancient Rome series] Domina. He said to me that if ever you’re trying to do a look of longing, or despair, or something that’s on a slow shot, you think of a wasp in a jar. I was really confused about this. But I think the idea is that it disconnects you slightly. And also: if you’re playing a slightly angrier character, you can shake the jar so the wasp’s a little angrier. I can’t explain it, really. But it works for him. And I tried it once and it worked for me too. So…

The one item that travels with me everywhere is…

My Nespresso machine. I’ve recently been filming in a lot of weird places, and when you’re staying in hotels, you get homesick. A coffee that’s familiar really makes a difference. That’s been giving me a lot of peace. But this is not an ad! Other coffee machines are available!

The TV show that I’m bingeing at the moment is…

Succession. But I’m not up to speed, I’m only on season three. I can’t look at Instagram for too long because I’ve got this fear that I’m gonna see a spoiler. When I worked with Simon Bird on Days of the Bagnold Summer I’d already seen all of The Inbetweeners. But I didn’t want to be that dude that comes up to him and just quotes it at him. Poor guy must get Briefcase Wanker a lot.

The actor who left me most starstruck was…

Jim Broadbent. He is a true veteran, and also the coolest guy. I’m obsessed with what actors do in between filming, what they do to process things, and I noticed that he’s drawing all the time. He’s doing strange portraits, I think of himself, on the script. He must have been doing it for years. So now I’ve been drawing a lot. I used to draw all the time as a kid, and I’ve been falling in love with it again. Jim was a real inspiration.

My dream role is…

A cowboy of some sort. That would be sick. And also maybe Dylan Thomas – a strange, Welsh and flamboyant poet would be cool. Can I do a Welsh accent? Oh, yeah, I didn’t really think about that… But I reckon I could give it a good shot. Get a dialect coach on that one.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is out now, would you believe