Ex-Brookside star Leon directs hard-hitting new film
Actor turned director Leon Lopez tackles transgender issues in Out of Time, a movie produced by Liverpool-based Foot in the Door Films and now out on Amazon Prime Video. Tony McDonough reports
A new film directed by former Brookside and Eastenders actor Leon Lopez and produced by a Liverpool -based film company is now available on Amazon Prime.
Out of Time tells the story of former MMA champion fighter Danny who returns home to his childhood sweetheart Sam, and their 11-year-old son Connor, after serving an eight-year jail sentence.
And hyper-masculine Danny’s world is thrown into turmoil when it is revealed young Connor is struggling with the body he was born in to. It is a movie that tackles the complexity and turmoil of transgender issues and its impact on families.
Described as “a film full of raw emotion”, but with comedic moments, Out of Time has been produced by Foot in the Door Films, a community interest company founded by experienced film industry professional, Michelle Billington.
Its cast is led by Jamie Cousins, Kerry Williams, Frankie Friend, Bernie Foley, Adam Abbou, Grace Ayeesha Hillier and guest stars, Louis Emerick, Suzanne Collins, Lindzi Germain, Marcus Collins and Nathan Moore. The diverse cast and crew included 43 intern students from Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University, some of whom are transgender themselves.
Originally an actor, Leon Lopez is now making his mark as a director. As well as Out of Time, his directing credits include Hollyoaks and Emmerdale and he is due to direct his first block of episodes on Coronation Street in December.
“I was honoured to be approached by producer Michelle Billington and writer and actress Kerry Williams to work on this script. As an LGBT director, with a lot of my work focusing on issues within the community, I was very much interested in telling this extremely important and very sensitive story.
“With the transgender community being heavily featured in recent mainstream media we wanted to tell a story that mainstream television and film have been afraid to talk about. My job was to work out how to place this story in a context, in which I myself, as a cisgender male could relate to, while keeping an open mind on matters that I could never imagine to understand.”
The film comes out at a time when many thousands of people around the world will be supporting Transgender Awareness Week which runs each year from November 13 to 19.