Exclusive Interview: Christian Lees Talks Pistol, Using Music As a Vehicle Into His Character, and More

Christian Lees is one of the breakout stars of 2022. This year, he’s captivating audiences with his transformative performance as Glen Matlock in Pistol. Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Christian about the limited series, how he prepared to play this music icon, and more.

PC: How did you discover your passion for storytelling and the arts?
Christian: That’s a good question. Everyone in my family is creative. That always helps. But I do think that I discovered it very naturally. My mom and dad met in a band, so there was a lot of music around. That’s a big part of me. I’m a musician as well.

Creating came very naturally to me. I’m actually a twin. My twin brother acts as well, and we were in a movie together. We’ve done a few things together. We’ve been very lucky about that. But when we were very young, we had this costume chest. We used to dress up as people. That’s how we played. It was how we expressed ourselves. It definitely felt very natural. Plus, I haven’t been good at much else. [laughs]

PC: What have you learned from music that you’ve been able to apply to your work on screen and vice versa?
Christian: That’s another great question. I believe it’s Brené Brown who says that there’s an element of vulnerability and you can’t create without being vulnerable. Both mediums share that. If you’re singing to someone, if you’re showing someone your music, it’s a very, very vulnerable feeling.

Acting is a bit different in the way that there is a bit of a shield. You get so used to being someone else that you’re not really being judged. In a way, you trick yourself into thinking, “I’m not being judged because I’m someone else.” At least, that’s how I get through auditions. I try to not be me. Afterward, I’ll worry about it and be like, “Oh, God. Was that bad?”

There are a few differences in the way that I approach them, but it’s just about being dedicated and doing all the work beforehand. Then when it’s actually the day and it’s time to do it, you can let go, relax, and be present.

PC: Tell us about Pistol, playing Glen Matlock, and what drew you to this project.
Christian: It’s a miniseries about the birth of punk. It’s about Steve Jones, who is the lead guitarist of the Sex Pistols. But it’s so much more. If this band didn’t exist, popular culture wouldn’t be the same. Music wouldn’t be the same. We owe a lot to them. We felt the weight of that.

Danny [Boyle] was amazing in teaching us how iconic they were and how dull ’70s England was. He painted living in the ’70s in England as such a bleak thing. He always used the word “gray,” which I thought was really interesting. He said it was so draconian and boring. The Pistols came out of necessity.

I was very drawn to this project, especially having a musical background. I felt very privileged to be able to learn a new instrument. I had to learn bass for this! And I got to play someone as iconic as Glen Matlock, who wrote most of the songs. It was a dream.

PC: You got to meet Glen as part of your preparation for this project. How influential were those interactions as you prepared to step into his shoes? What parallels were you able to draw between your shared experiences?
Christian: They were very influential. First of all, he’s a lovely guy. He’s really nice and very relaxed. I’ve played a few real people in the past. It’s always a surreal experience because you have to do a lot of research. You read their books. You look at their interviews. All of a sudden, in walks the person that you’ve studied for weeks. At first, it’s a bit of an out-of-body experience. You have to try to be present and go, “I need to listen because all I’m seeing is this person that I’ve seen in videos and I need to actually listen to him.” [laughs] He immediately disarmed me. He picked up the bass straight away. I was filming him playing and watching his fingers. That was very influential.

In terms of similarities, I do think that I was able to connect with Glen in that we’re both in-betweeners. Glen was certainly an in-betweener. He didn’t fit in at school. That was my throughline. I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t an outcast in school by any means, but I was definitely an in-betweener. I wasn’t a popular kid.

PC: Like you were just saying though, this isn’t the first time in your career that you’ve played a music icon. How did your experience working on Sun Records prepare you for this project?
Christian: It prepared me a lot. The fact that I’ve been lucky enough to play two rock music icons is surreal in itself. I feel very privileged. Using music as a vehicle to find the character has been really interesting. Music says so much about who we are. You think, “How does this inform me about who they are, how they play, what they play?” I got to meet Jerry Lee Lewis. That was also surreal. It definitely helped.

Growing up, I played a lot of Elton John and Billy Joel. Their work is really complicated on the right hand. I usually use my left hand when I’m playing bass. With Jerry, it was the opposite. His left hand was insane. It was doing that hard work all over. His left hand was his bass hand. Jerry Lee taught me the importance of bass, even though I’d never played the bass. It let me know how vital the bass was in making people want to dance or move. Glen Matlock even mentions Jerry Lee Lewis a couple of times in his book. It was weird. I was like, “Two people that I’ve played are talking about each other!”

PC: There’s such great chemistry that comes off the screen between all of you. How were you able to build that bond while filming during a pandemic?
Christian: It’s a good question. That goes to the genius of what band camp did for us. We did a band camp before we filmed. Danny was very clever. He knew locking us in that building for weeks, where we couldn’t go out, would be a fast-tracking bonding experience. You’re going through this weird thing together. There was this very chaotic energy. Everybody was method-acting a bit. I was channeling Glen and trying to convince them not to climb up the walls and keeping everyone calm. By the time that we got to set, we felt like we’d been through something together.

Danny encouraged a very light-hearted chaos on set. Before the cameras would roll, we would all mess around. [laughs] People were trying to set up, but we were encouraged to be a bit mischievous. I mean, we didn’t ruin anything, but we did have a lot of fun. The Sex Pistols’ energy was that there were no rules. There was a very, very organized feeling of no rules, even though we were all wearing masks and we were all following the rules. It was very well done. We felt like punks. Danny is very clever. He made us feel like we had freedom.

PC: Besides this project, what’s next for you? And as you look ahead to the next five to ten years, is there a dream role that you would love to bring to life on the screen?
Christian: That’s a good question. I have another movie out now called Phantom of the Open. It’s been in cinemas in England for a while, and it just hit cinemas in New York and LA. It’ll hit the rest of America soon. It stars Mark Rylance, Sally Hawkins, and my twin brother. I’ve also been doing a lot of writing during lockdown. I’m trying to start that part of my career.

In terms of dream roles, I really like the comeback of movie musicals. There’s something that was so classic about those ’40s movie musicals that we lost along the way. I think it’s because they may come across a bit hokey and cheesy. But since La La Land, people are making them cool again. We’ve also got West Side Story. I started musical theater when I was nine years old. I would love to go back to that and tie it into music on the screen.

To keep up with Christian, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Watch Pistol on FX today.