I Swear director on Baftas N-word row: ‘John was let down on many, many levels’
It has been, says Kirk Jones, with not a little understatement, "an interesting week". The writer, director, producer and (with his wife, Cindy) funder of I Swear , the feel-good independent British biopic about John Davidson, a Tourette syndrome campaigner, saw his film win three Baftas on Sunday night.
Not that he has had much opportunity to bask in the glory of Robert Aramayo's shock win in the best actor category over Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet. The film's success was overshadowed by the inclusion in the BBC's delayed broadcast of the ceremony of an involuntary tic from Davidson (people with Tourette's may shout, swear and twitch repetitively and uncontrollably, including the involuntary yelling of obscene or derogatory remarks ) when he shouted the N-word as Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, the two black stars of Sinners, were on stage. The clip went viral, to horrified commentary from around the world.
Credit: BBC/BAFTA
"I think John was let down on many, many levels," says Jones, 61, when we catch up on Thursday. "And I think the fact that that [tic] went out for broadcast was perhaps one of the worst ways in which he was let down on the night."
"If you just imagine for a second that that was not broadcast, then suddenly the problem was restricted to everyone in the room. And Bafta could write to everyone in the room, and they [could have] said, 'We wanted to apologise again, we understand, this, that and the other.' They could have done that the next day to all the guests, and no one would have known that it happened… You wouldn't have the clips."
Everybody involved would probably agree that Davidson's tic should not have been broadcast. Not least because, before the ceremony started, a production manager told the attendees that Davidson was in the room and that they may hear some of his tics as things went on. They were, in Jones's words, "fully briefed". Indeed, that led to Davidson getting a lengthy round of applause.
"It went on so long that John then got up," says Jones. "I looked at him and he was raising his arms, and people were cheering and whistling and clapping."
Aramayo and Davidson pictured backstage during the Baftas – attendees were briefed on Davidson's presence and condition - Carlo Paloni/BAFTA via Getty Images
It also ought to be pointed out that the N-word was not the only tic Davidson experienced in the auditorium. He involuntarily said that the speech given by Sara Putt, the Bafta chairman, was boring, and made homophobic comments about Alan Cumming, the presenter.
But it is the N-word that captured global attention. Jones, who has been a film-maker for more than 30 years (he also made Nanny McPhee , starring Emma Thompson, and the sequel to My Big Fat Greek Wedding ), says that he "can't believe it wasn't very easily and very technically possible to get rid of it. I really struggle to understand that".
The first that Jones knew about the coming storm was at the dinner hosted after the ceremony, when he saw something online about a slur being said at the Baftas. Like everybody else, he assumed that it would not make it to air. The I Swear team celebrated heartily on Sunday evening and Jones says "the ecstasy of the wins just carried us through that night".
After returning to his hotel, Jones glanced at his phone in the middle of the night and saw messages from the US as the botched edit had made news on the other side of the Atlantic. He was at his computer at about 3am "trying to help fight fires in America with journalists".
Most coverage of the episode in Britain has been sympathetic to Davidson and his condition , but the American press and commentariat have been notably more hostile. Jamie Foxx, for instance, betrayed his ignorance of Tourette's by saying that Davidson "meant that s---", which he described as "unacceptable". Some suggested that Davidson, who was an executive producer on the film, should not have been invited to the Baftas at all. Jones, who has now retreated to Cornwall to work on his next script, says in our phone call: "The overriding irony is that this is the reason why we made the film in the first place." Fortunately, Tourette's campaigners Stateside, including black people with the condition, have publicly supported Davidson.
The difference in reaction may be explained by the fact that the film was released in Britain last October and has been available to stream at home from Christmas, but will not reach American cinemas until the end of April.
"People were saying things like, 'He must be able to stop himself, he must be racist, otherwise he wouldn't even be thinking of that word. He's putting it on. It's just a mask.' It just suddenly felt really old fashioned," says Jones. "It felt like I'd gone back 20 years. I fell into this trap of thinking [that] because I feel like I know so much now, and because I'm assuming that people have seen the film, then everyone knows about it, but that's not true. People haven't seen the film. I don't think I slept for the first two nights."
What Jones is keen not to do is enter into a row with anybody over something that upset a lot of people. "I absolutely, totally understand both sides… I have no issue with understanding people who are not educated enough at this moment in time about the condition to be able to understand what happened the other night," he says. "I don't feel any ill-feeling towards them at all."
Jones empathises with those who were shocked and saddened by the outburst, given the "historical connotations" of the N-word, as well as the "awful, awful impact that it had on the presenters and members of the audience".
And it is important to remember that Davidson, who was diagnosed with Tourette's as a teenager, is at the heart of all this. "I think it really upset him," Jones says. "It upsets him that he upsets other people. It upsets him that he might have interfered with the process of the film being acknowledged." Davidson has told Variety he was left feeling "deeply mortified" by the thought that he had offended anybody.
Sunday was, in many respects, a "typical John Davidson day", according to Jones. "One minute he's standing, receiving applause and appreciation and feeling like he's included and everything and welcomed. The next minute, he's having to leave the auditorium, and so many people are upset, and it's a social media storm," he says.
"And he finally gets home to Scotland the next day, and I suspect because thieves knew that he was in London – because they could see [he would be at] the awards – they went to his house, broke into his shed, and they stole his bike. He doesn't drive and he loves his bike. And it was all locked up in the shed, and it was broken into… any day in his life can turn out like that. It can be good bits, and then it can be awful bits and aggressive bits and upsetting bits. And that's just what the Tourette's does. It's nasty."
Happily for Davidson, police have been able to trace his bicycle.
If there is a silver lining to the cloud that has been cast over the triumph of Davidson, Jones and everybody else involved in I Swear, through no fault of their own, it is that it has at least raised awareness of – and, one hopes, sympathy for – people with Tourette's.
"What's happened over the last three days has brought the subject of Tourette's to the surface, is forcing people to have a view, to discuss, to debate, to consider the facts, to consider whether they should watch the film or not, to learn more," says Jones. "If you try and look back and think, 'Well, was there anything there that was positive?' It's the fact that it's really brought it out, and it's become a very public subject in a very short space of time."
'I Swear' is showing in select cinemas and comes to Netflix on March 10
