Johnny Flynn Explains Why He’s So Good At Gazing Longingly: “I Fall In Love Quite Easily”

Over the past decade, Johnny Flynn has proven himself to be one of the most charming romantic leads of film and TV. From his epic love story with Antonia Thomas on the British sitcom Lovesick, to his heated looks with Anne Hathaway in 2014’s Song One, to his playful banter with Anya Taylor-Joy as George Knightley in 2020’s Emma, the man knows how to play head-over-heels in love. Now he’s back at it again with The Dig, a new Netflix movie that began streaming today.

The film—based on a 2007 historical novel by John Preston and directed by Simon Stones—is inspired by the true story of the 1939 excavation at Sutton Hoo, England. That dig, helmed by landowner Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) and archeologist Basil Brown (played by Ralph Fiennes), led to the revolutionary discovery of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon artifacts. In dramatizing the events, novelist Preston peppered in some romance between another young archeologist (Lily James), and a fictional photographer named Rory Lomax. That’s where Flynn comes in. The 37-year-old actor/musician once again hits it out of the park, all charisma and longing looks to James’s shy, flirtatious glances.

“When you’re romantically in love with somebody, you want to drink them in,” Flynn told Decider in a Zoom interview. “If somebody’s talking to you, you have that space for them—everything that they’re doing and saying is like a gift.” We spoke to Flynn about finding that space with James, creating his character for The Dig, and the possibility of a Lovesick Season 4—or maybe even a Lovesick movie?—below.

Decider: How and when did you first come aboard to The Dig? 

Johnny Flynn: I was sent the script for the first time the same day that I was at the British Museum with my son looking at the stuff that they found in Sutton Hoo. It’s this amazing mask—really haunting, beautiful.  It’s such beautiful metalwork and it’s really enchanting. I’m an amateur history geek, like I loved history at school, and am particularly interested in Dark Age history. My son was studying the Saxons for school, so I took him to the British Museum. Then I got this call from a casting director, who I knew, and it just seemed so serendipitous, and, like a fantastic coincidence. What I love about the story is, it joins these two amazing periods of history. The story was in 1939, on the brink of war in the movie, but these characters are living over this long summer that sort of can’t be long enough. They’re uncovering this thing, and that is giving a mystical sense of realization about their own time. Anyway, so I love the story, as you can tell. [Laughs.]

Tell me about finding your character, Rory.

I love the character because he’s actually the only character in the story that isn’t a real person. John Preston, a novelist and Moira Buffini, the scriptwriter, I think made this fantastic device with Rory as somebody who allows you to see Peggy. You get to see Lily James’s character through his eyes, and you get to realize that she’s not happy in her marriage. There’s some license with him because he’s not a real person. Some reviewers were like, ‘Well, it took a lot of license with facts.’ Well, Shakespeare took quite a few licenses in Macbeth, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida. It’s a story in the end, and you have to make stories work and you’ve got something that’s, you know, the span of several months, and you have to conflate people and events and characters and try to translate that for people.

Right, and the film makes him feel very real—the attention to detail on the costuming for your character, I felt, was key. I love the blue shorts. Were you involved in creating his look?

Yeah, the clothes were part of that process. Our wonderful costume designer Alice Babidge had some ideas, and I just jumped into her mode of thought. Very late in the script, it’s revealed Rory sits outside because he thinks the house is too hot. I spend a lot of time walking in nature and camping out—I like sleeping on the ground under the stars so it that all just suited me And the idea that he rides a motorbike and has this aspiration to be a pilot—he’s kind of a solo flyer in his heart. Our designer had this idea that he was almost like a James Dean before his time, with the jackets. We had these ideas that even though he is from a middle-class family, he’s quite a bohemian. He’s an innovator. We had this whole backstory—he’d met somebody from the States who he bought some blue jeans from because this English dude wouldn’t have had them. Blue jeans were an American thing at that point.

You and Lily James have great chemistry. Was this your first time meeting? How well did the two of you get to know each other?

We did meet maybe once or twice before for another project that didn’t happen. I think we have a few mutual friends. But this is the first time we hung out. And I just loved her. She’s an incredibly kind and warm and sweet person. Generous, a very gentle presence, but also supremely talented and focused. She’s a very rare combination of strength and vulnerability. I loved working with her and I loved hanging out with her. We were all out on location quite often when we were at the mounds. We would hang out in the evening and get a drink. We were in that little world of the story.

It’s funny—in this script, she tells the story about a cellist playing to the nightingales. In April, I got invited to do this thing that a friend of mine runs, where he was playing. It was in the lockdown, so he was in the woods with some microphones, and basically was playing live music to nightingales. I was in my house in London playing, and he was beaming it to the nightingales and then recording the nightingales singing back, just like the scene in the film. I texted Lily, I was like “You won’t believe it, but I’m singing with the nightingales and they’re responding.” They were singing back. It was a real art meets life moment.

My friend Alanna Bennett has this theory that the most important skill a romantic lead needs is the ability to just look at his love interest. You’re so good at that in this film, in Lovesick, and in Emma. Is that something you’re aware of and try to do?

[Laughs.] I don’t know. I’m a big fan of active listening. I like listening to people. When you’re romantically in love with somebody, you want to drink them in. And if somebody’s talking to you, you have that space for them, everything that they’re doing and saying is like a gift. I just know that feeling really well. I fall in love quite easily. There’s obviously romantic love, but I’m also in love with lots of my friends and my kids, too. Not romantically, but like, I love people, you know? So it’s easy for me to remember what that feels like because it’s happening all the time. Just listening to people. I think it’s interesting to see people listening in an active way. I don’t need to do anything! I just need to listen and give this person that space to say what they have to say. That’s the best I can do.

That’s a beautiful way to look at the world and also it makes you very good at your job! Your co-star from Emma, Anya Taylor-Joy, has had a great year with The Queen’s Gambit—are you guys still in touch?

Yeah, no, she’s amazing. Like Lily, she’s just such a fantastic scene partner and inspirational work partner. In Emma, she was carrying the movie and like in every frame, so there was a lot on her shoulders. We got very close, we became good friends. And we’ve stayed in touch and we message each other every now and then. I was telling her how much I love Queen’s Gambit recently. I love her. She’s great.

Last question: I am such a big fan of your series Lovesick. Is there any chance that we would ever get a fourth season? Would you be down? 

I would be down with that, for sure. Making that show was one of the pleasures of my life. I loved it. I loved all the people involved. And I really miss them all. I think what they did was with the writing, they kind of made it that if for any reason, there wasn’t another season that it was left in a good place, but there’s definitely room to continue the story, or even go back into the past more. Never say never, but we’re not planning it now. Nobody’s talked about it for a long time. Netflix was like, “Not just now,” that kind of thing. So we’ve all just put it in the back of our minds. But it could happen. We’ll get older, we have to. If it’s going to be set in the same time period, we’d have to do it like in the next three minutes. I’m getting wrinkles. I can’t be 27 anymore!

It’d be nice to see a more adult Dylan. Maybe he’s in a better place.

I think that’d be cool. Maybe Evie and Dylan with some kids. The chat a little while ago was about like a one-off sort of film that was, you know, just like one event—set around one thing that happens, you know, like a holiday that they all get together for or something, which I thought would be quite fun.

Fans would love that! Hopefully we get to see that after The Dig is a big hit for Netflix. I’m sure there’ll be more Johnny Flynn content.

[Laughs.] Thank you so much.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Watch The Dig on Netflix