Breakwater cast on queer intimacy and why Heartstopper’s Will Gao makes you ‘blush’

At the heart of Breakwater is the idea of intimacy and how it manifests in all relationships in different ways.

Breakwater focuses on the character of Otto, an Oxford student played by Daniel McNamee. He starts off in a relationship with Lucy (Agnes Halladay) that evidently lacks any spark and leaves neither of them satisfied in any sense. 

Then Otto meets John (Shaun Paul McGrath), a lone, older angler in a seaside town on the Suffolk coast. Eventually a friendship develops, then a romantic connection.

The film’s writer and director, Max Morgan, has tried to ensure that Breakwater is different to other queer narratives and those looking at intimacy. So much of what happens is internalised, relying on the actors’ performances to communicate their struggles.

Audiences will have to be more receptive, to decode some of what is going on, rather than being spoon-fed. It’s an interesting choice, but one that hopefully keeps people guessing.

“I’m a gay man and the script quite poetically, but nonetheless very efficiently, dealt with some of the less-straightforward journeys that queer people can often go on to find themselves,” says McNamee.

It’s not much of a spoiler to say Otto and Lucy’s relationship crumbles fairly quickly, making way for Otto and John’s to form. For Halladay, it was an opportunity to explore how relationships and intimacy can evolve.

“The later scenes where Lucy and Otto aren’t necessarily romantically involved anymore feel so much more intimate,” she says. “There’s a nice storyline of friendship and the idea of having someone be in your life but not necessarily in the right role.”

Halladay praises the script for not forcing conflict between Lucy and Otto over the latter’s sexuality, something that has come up in other narratives, she says.

“There were issues in Otto becoming closer and intimate with John but it’s a really lovely insight into the fact that there can be all these complicated things going on with sexuality and intimacy, and sometimes that doesn’t have to be the conversation”.

Similarly, McNamee sees Breakwater as a departure from conventions when it comes to storytelling. “Often queer films feel the need to follow a relatively formulaic depiction of what romance can look like and, quite often, romance doesn’t look anything like that,” he insists.

He also sees the non-labelling of any of the relationships, except Otto and Lucy’s at the start of the film, as one way that intimacy flourishes. “Because no one’s calling them something specific, they exist in the in-between spaces, it’s more intimate,” he says.

As McGrath points out: “You don’t have to tell someone you love them when you’re already showing love.” And he doesn’t mean “showing” in a physical sense, something Breakwater also does away with. “I don’t think [Morgan] wanted to go in that direction. He didn’t want to play the obvious [and] stereotypical.”

The intimacy extends off screen, with McNamee and McGrath coming from similar parts of Northern Ireland. Their upbringings and experiences with religion, according to McGrath, gave them a level of intimacy that is rare to find naturally and even more difficult to manufacture on screen. 

“It led me and Danny to somewhere where we didn’t have to speak much,” McGrath goes on to say. “There was always this sensitivity with me and Danny. For me, it was just beautiful”.

McNamee agrees about “an unspoken understanding” between them.

The film also stars Heartstopper‘s Will Gao, as Matt, a seemingly wealthy party boy reminiscent of Fiyero in Wicked.

“Will has charisma oozing out of every pore,” McNamee says. “So, when you’re [sitting] opposite him, you sort of blush and kick your feet.”

But the obviously charged connection between Matt and Otto is something that feels unexplored in the film, although that might be for a good reason.

“There is an element of a life that never was, in the character of Matt,” McNamee says. “Very much, Matt represents the life Otto could have. And there’s no reason to believe that he couldn’t [still] have that life one day. I’d quite like to believe that he could.”

Breakwater is due to premiere at the Raindance Film Festival, in London, on Monday (23 June). Tickets are available here.

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