My snooping began with a conversation between myself and the producers/directors Greg Loftman and Akaash Meeda. The location of the set is in a park, Greg and Akaash referred to it as the "central perk" of Daze, explaining that they wanted to keep the series as real as possible; most youth series have their central location in cafes/pizzarias, yet in reality most young people meet in the park. We also chatted about their initial intentions with the project, they want to promote local individual unsigned talent.
After our chat, I met three of the four principle cast members, Petrice Jones (who plays Jayden), Sophie Halford (who plays Sam) and Ahmed Mohammed (who plays Aaron). They have been enjoying their first few days of filming so I figured they wouldn't mind being bombarded with a few questions from myself.
Now for a bit of scene setting, the interview took place on the circular benches in the park, the two actors and actress were sat fairly nervous, squashed together and a fair distance from myself. Please bare in mind as you read this interview that this is simply the first of many interviews with the cast members... and these are the simplest questions that they will ever get."How can you describe your character?"
Petrice: "[Jayden is] a troubled teen, not sure about who he is and experiences highs and lows throughout the series. All that he really does know is that he loves hip hop dancing."
Sophie: "[Sam is interpretted as] a bit of a tomboy, being the only girl in the group with the other three boys, but at the same time she is quite motherly towards the rest of the boys, making sure they don't do anything stupid or don't drink too much - but she doesn't want to be called motherly.
Ahmed: "[Aaron] is the comical glue of the group but he's one of those characters whose importance goes unnoticed - that is until he's not around when the group need his icebreaking skills."
"Do you feel that your character is a reflection of yourself?"
Petrice: "The only thing that we have in common is that we both love hip hop dancing. I don't really think myself to be a troubled team though." (As expected, there was a bit of group banter - encouraged by Greg - "Don't kid yourself Petrice" - proof that there's still fun and games in a serious project)
Sophie: "Me and Sam are the opposite, I'm so girlie and she is so not, I'm also rubbish at confrontation and sometimes that's all that Sam knows."
Ahmed: (Bare in mind that this reply was followed by a lot of banter.) "No not really, well yes a bit, but no because I can put a mental block up to stop me doing stupid things."
"How did you get involved in Daze?"
Petrice: "There were lots of Daze audition posters up and it was talked about a lot around school. I decided to go to the audition at Loughton memorial and give it a go."
Sophie: "I was friends with Ahmed before and he told me all about Daze. When I was introduced to Greg and Akaash, it all went from there."
Ahmed: "I was actually a late edition to the cast, I initially wanted to audition for Jayden but I couldn't make the audition, luckily I was given another chance. When I didn't get the role of Jayden, I took the role of Jayden's gang rival but was then offered the part of Aaron just before filming began.
This was a short interview as they had to go and start filming but there's lots more Daze juice to come. Keep reading this blog for more updates.
If there's anything you'd like to know about Daze, questions you want answered or even how to get involved then email me at pippasays@hotmail.com.
P x
The photographs were taken by Rob Sewell.
Photo 1: Top left to bottom right - Akaash Meeda, Greg Loftman, Kenny Walker (who I have yet to interrogate), Ahmed Mohammed, Sophie Halford and Petrice Jones.
Photo 2: Left to right - Petrice Jones, Ahmed Mohammed and Sophie Halford.
