Sam Claflin On Becoming Billy Dunne For ‘Daisy Jones & The Six,’ Diving Deep Into Fleetwood Mac’s History & Gravitating To Projects That Feel “Closer To Home”
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Sam Claflin learned about the history of Fleetwood Mac from a TikTok video.
He’d grown up listening to Rumours and, although that album is heavily infused with the lust and pain that accompanied the band’s infamous affairs, he had never looked beyond the music. The actor had already been cast as frontman Billy Dunne in Daisy Jones and the Six when he began his deep dive.
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In fact, his fascination began when he was introduced to Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s 1997 performance of “Silver Springs” — which, funnily enough, would go viral on TikTok after the release of Daisy Jones.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, the chemistry, that connection, the history,'” he remembered in a recent conversation with Deadline. “And I remember being the one to show Riley [Keough] that on almost like day one, saying ‘Have you seen this video? How Billy-Daisy is this?'”
Claflin has joked many times that he wasn’t very musically inclined before he signed on to the series adaptation for Daisy Jones and the Six. He performed Elton John’s “Your Song” for his audition and was asked to stop before he could reach the end. He also thought that “Come Together” by the Beatles was a Michael Jackson song. Still, something about him made the producers think he’d be right for the role.
But in order to become a believable frontman, Claflin would have to put in quite a bit of work.
“Honestly, that first week, I was very stressed and very worried. I mean, terrified honestly, about the prospect of doing this well, because I didn’t see myself progressing that quickly…” he said, explaining that he’d originally been tasked with transforming into a rockstar in just five weeks.
Within about a week of Claflin landing in LA for rehearsals, productions were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and suddenly his timeline got a lot longer. Over the course of the next 18 months, he poured himself into his character, from learning guitar to perfecting his dialect to nailing the stage choreography.
In the interview below, Claflin talks with Deadline about the work that went into becoming Billy Dunne and how Daisy Jones and the Six changed his outlook on his entire career.
DEADLINE: You’ve talked a lot about how you didn’t know at first how big of a musical element there would be to your role. So once you were cast, where did you start?
SAM CLAFLIN: So they gave me a guitar very quickly, like thrust it into my hands. I think the first thing I did was go to a guitar lesson. I landed in LA, [and] the very next morning, I had a guitar and was sat in front of this guy called Ryan Hommel, who was to be my guitar guru for the foreseeable future. We started at the very, very basics, just how to hold the guitar and how to strum, finger placement. My God, it felt like we were fighting an uphill battle from the very beginning, honestly. I hit the ground running. Not only was it the guitar, I was having movement sessions with a movement coach. Myself and the director had a discussion about wanting Billy to be a little trimmer than I naturally am, because in the 70s, there wasn’t really gyms. It was just a lot of drug addicts. So I was training with a trainer and eating very little. I had dialect sessions. I had singing lessons. I was also then immediately thrust into a recording studio to get used to how a recording studio works and how do you use a microphone. So that was my day-to-day for like a week and then COVID hit. But honestly, that first week, I was very stressed and very worried. I mean, terrified honestly, about the prospect of doing this well, because I didn’t see myself progressing that quickly in five weeks at guitar to be able to sell that I know what I’m doing and whilst singing whilst doing the two simultaneously. I think it got off to a very, very rocky start. But one of the best blessings that happened to me was that we were given an extra year and a half of time, and so that meant a year and a half familiarizing myself with not only the music but the guitar. And losing the weight, but gradually. I continued all of those things, but just spread out a little more. My guitar lessons were just an hour long, but I had an hour every day for a year and a half, pretty much. It also allowed time to get to know the era a bit more better, do research on who Billy Dunn’s influences were…and to do my homework. So there was there was a lot of time and a lot of effort put into trying to get to even the basics of a rock star. The thing is, despite having gone on that journey, I still wouldn’t class myself as a musician. I’m worlds below anyone that is doing that for real. There are famous musicians who have blagged it, you know, up to a point. But I think it’s harder to do that now with with the amount of musicians and how everything’s sort of viewed under a microscope. I think it’s harder to blag it now. But at the time, I think there were quite a few people who weren’t really that musically talented or gifted, but just wanted the feeling of it. So I kind of also lent into that equally. I was like, ‘Well, even if I don’t know what I’m doing, as long as I look like I know what I’m doing, it’s sort of okay.’
DEADLINE: You mention researching some of Billy’s influences, and of course Fleetwood Mac is such a big inspiration for The Six. As is The Civil Wars. How much had you known about their strife before this, especially considering so much of it is thinly veiled within their music?
CLAFLIN: So I knew of Fleetwood Mac. I grew up listening to them. My parents had a very old car when I was a kid, and it had a tape deck for years, and we’d have the same three or four albums on repeat. And Rumours was one of them. So I knew Fleetwood Mac from when I was very little, but didn’t know who they were. I just knew all of the words to all of their songs. And then when I was in my 20s, I remember I was at drama school and my buddy was playing a Fleetwood Mac album, and I was like, ‘Who is this? How do I know all the words and all the songs, but I never know what the band’s called?’ Then I went to see them live about 10 years ago, and that was by far and large, the best gig I’ve ever seen in my life. And They were all present. So it was even more magical. And that was it. Really, that was about as much as I knew about Fleetwood Mac. Actually, when I got cast — and I’ll never forget — I was on the plane ride to LA to go and start pre production. My buddy who actually was the one who told me who Fleetwood Mac were…he sent me a video and he said, ‘I know the book. I’ve read the book, and the book always reminds me of this clip.’ He was the first person to send me that famous clip of them singing ‘Silver Springs’ where [Steve Nicks] is just staring and shouting, like screaming at [Lindsey Buckingham]. And he’s looking at her longingly, trying to get through it. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, the chemistry, that connection, the history.’ And I remember being the one to show Riley that on almost like day one, saying ‘Have you seen this video? How Billy-Daisy is this?’ That spurred me on to want to know more, because she then told me a bit of information about it. It was just like a snowball effect, I think, but it happened very late in my life. Honestly, I think the more you find out about all the love triangles — I mean, it wasn’t just a triangle, it was like a love pentagon. I mean, there was there were all kinds of back and forth and then leaving the band and coming back and this person’s wife left and then they stayed. It was so confusing, but I watched this video on TikTok. I’m not much of a TikTok user, but I watched this video, which talks you through the entire Fleetwood Mac history. I’m a huge fan of their work, and it definitely influenced us as actors as well as the story heavily.
DEADLINE: You say you’re not very musically inclined, but was there anything about the role that came naturally to you?
CLAFLIN: Gosh, I don’t know. I really don’t think any of it at all. It all felt alien to me…every aspect of it was thought about and choreographed in my head, if not by an actual movement coach. It was incredibly difficult. I think it’s because I’m not one of those actors that can just be completely free. I’m quite OCD in my life. I am quite controlled. I suppose, in a way, continuity is one of my strong points. As an actor, I’m very specific about, ‘I took a toke of a cigarette on that line, when that person said this, and I laughed here…’ I find it very difficult to be completely free. I think as a musician, that’s what you need to be. You need to just go wherever the feeling takes you. That’s the thing that I struggled with most, I’d say. And it was the music itself, playing guitar and singing whilst remembering to keep playing guitar. Every aspect of it was difficult. I’m not gonna lie. It was very difficult. But I was very fortunate, because we had locked down, I had a lot of time to practice and play and to watch Lindsey [Buckingham] and Bruce Springsteen and Jim Morrison. I mean, the list goes on. Any lead singers or frontmen of that era, I was obsessed by. And certain moments required a different character in essence. So yeah, it was it was enjoyable, but very, very challenging.
DEADLINE: There are so many emotionally charged moments for Billy, both with Camila and with Daisy. Are you the type of actor who needs to stay in that headspace in between takes, or do you prefer to remove yourself from those emotions a bit more?
CLAFLIN: I think it depends on the particular scene. I think a lot of the time that was me and Cami, those scenes usually seemed a little heavier. I’m talking about the big the big, big scenes. Whether that was pre or post the addiction or rehab, all those scenes are very heavy. And then the very end, which is pretty much the meat of what our scenes were, again, the fear of her leaving me. So those scenes require a little more focus, I think generally speaking, whereas a lot of the scenes between Billy and Daisy [required accessing] the thing that I think I do very well in life, which is falling in love. I’m a hopeless romantic. I know that feeling. I feel like I’ve fallen in love so many times in my life. I know that feeling of excitement and adrenaline and fear and anxiety. When you have a natural chemistry with someone, which I think me and Riley do, we just — dare I say we’re both I think very good people, and neither of us have an ego. We both are very trusting and open and honest. We both love to have fun. So I think those scenes just kind of wrote themselves in a way. [Pauses]. That’s a lie, and we couldn’t have done it without the writers. They’re so important. But I mean, the chemistry is what kind of lifts those off the page and makes them what they are. I think the scenes with Cami, they were heavier. So sometimes we’d sit in that post, and usually she was in a more fragile vulnerable state, the character was. So it was often me giving her space rather than me going, ‘I need to be alone.’ I think I was just conscious that maybe she needed to kind of stay in those tears for a little longer. But honestly, for me, a lot of the teary scenes throughout the series, I found very easy to draw from my own experience. I think being the oldest and the most experienced amongst the group, I’ve lived through the most. I was the only person who’s a dad at the time. Especially with Billy, I can lean into my own insecurities and my own anxieties of life and my struggles that I’ve been through. I found it very easy to cry…I think Billy is very relatable, honestly, and so at the end of each take, I’d probably continue crying for 10 more seconds. Sobbing sometimes. But then when they say ‘Okay, we’re ready to go.’ I’d sort of dry myself [and say], ‘Okay, let’s go. Let’s go again.’ I’ve never found it so easy with regards to feeling something authentically. I’m not saying the job was easy, but was the easiest it has ever been to be in touch with my emotions, if that makes any sense.
DEADLINE: You have had quite a long career at this point. When you’re searching for new roles, what stands out to you?
CLAFLIN: It’s a good question. It’s difficult to answer though, because I don’t think I ever know what script is around the corner. As much as a lot of people do have very set goals for themselves, I don’t know where my life is going next week, next year or next five years. What I will say is from the experience I had on Daisy Jones, which was a very unique feeling, what I think I gain the most out of it was the fact that I as I said, I was playing things quite authentically because I could draw from my own experience. So I think something I’d like to explore more would be the opportunity of playing characters closer to home. I think I’ve spent so much of my life going, ‘I want to do something completely different. I want to prove to people I can do this or prove to people I can do that.’ And actually, I got most fulfillment, I think out, of playing someone who’s very close to home, very close to me that I could go ‘Wow, yeah, I feel what this character is going through.’ Rather than having to guess or imagine you. I look back at this project, and knowing how much work I’ve put in, knowing how far I’ve come on my journey as an actor, as well as a person, I think that’s the most proud I’ve ever been watching myself in something. Don’t get me wrong. There’s the huge, huge room for improvement. But I came a long way, and I think I’m like, ‘Wow, good for you.’ I’ve really put the work in and put the time and effort in. So yeah, I’d love to play things closer to home but at the same time, I love new challengers, things that I’ve never done before. That could be anything from like an action movie to James Bond or a Marvel superhero. I don’t know. My schedule’s kind of free, I’m sort of I’m open to ideas, really. I like being flexible.
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