Watch Breakout Star Jack O'Connell in His Other Soldier Drama, ''71' (Exclusive Trailer)
Jack O’Connell is a British soldier abandoned by his unit during the Belfast riots in the tense, electrifying thriller ‘71 (opening Feb. 27, exclusive trailer above). Director Yann Demange’s feature debut, which received rave reviews on the festival circuit and is an official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, takes place over the course of one long night in 1971 at the height of the Northern Irish nationalist conflict known as the Troubles.
It’s another intense role for O’Connell, who also stars as an Olympian-turned-POW in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (opening Dec. 25) and who played a violent teenage felon in this summer’s indie prison drama Starred Up. ”There’s nobody else that could have played this part [except O’Connell]… At the same time as having this machismo and definitely having alpha qualities, he’s got a vulnerability and he’s not afraid to show it,” Demange told Yahoo Movies Canada at the Toronto Film Festival in September.
"You empathize with him, you care for him, he’s a complex guy. I needed someone who could get across all these complexities and these layers without saying anything. He’s the only actor that I’ve met who could do that."
