I Swear cast and director on bringing Tourette's activist John Davidson's "unique" true story to the big screen

The show was a huge success, and came to be regarded as something of a turning point regarding public awareness of Tourette's. In the years since, a number of subsequent programmes have revisited John as he embarked on a journey to become an ambassador for the condition, a journey which culminated in him being awarded an MBE in 2019 – and shouting "f**k the Queen" during the ceremony.

That's one of several memorable moments dramatised in the new film I Swear, an adaptation of Davidson's life written and directed by Kirk Jones. Jones had seen the aforementioned John's Not Mad when it first aired, and kept a close eye on his life ever since, eventually going to meet him at his home in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels a couple of years ago.

"I tracked him over the years in different documentaries," he explains in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com. "I saw him in his 20s and 30s, just trying to have a girlfriend or a relationship or trying to find a job.

"I felt really strongly that there was an interesting and unique film to be made about his life story. I was just fascinated by the fact that John is such a lovely, wonderful man, but when he opens his mouth, what he says can really anger, upset and concern people.

"I just felt like the combination of the humour – which is inherently part of the condition – as well as the upset and the tragedy that John had encountered throughout his life was a really interesting mix for a film."

The role of Davidson in the film is played by Robert Aramayo, best known for his turn as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It's an incredible performance, and one that the actor confesses was the most challenging of his career to date.

"I didn't know anything about John," he says. "It was only afterwards I found out that he's, like, enormously famous. Which is probably a good thing!

"[But] as soon as I met him, it felt grounded within me, it felt like something that I should be doing. It was an amazing opportunity and it was terrifying and the most difficult thing that I've ever done, but I knew that it was right to give it my best go."

Aramayo is joined in the cast by a number of other familiar faces, including key roles for Shirley Henderson as John's mother Heather, and Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan as two kind-hearted locals who – in their different ways – help Davidson come to terms with his condition and begin to live a more regular life.

Each of the stars had varying degrees of knowledge about Tourette's before they were approached for the film. Henderson, for example, references her role in Dirty Filthy Love, a 2004 TV drama starring Michael Sheen as an architect with OCD and Tourette's, while Peake mentions her time on Channel 4 drama Shameless, in which her character's brother (played by Jack Deam) had the condition.

"I remember talking to Jack about his process [at the time], and he said, 'Well, I've been studying John Davidson and John's Not Mad, the documentary,'" she recalls. "I was like, 'I love that documentary!' So we got chatting and he said, 'Do you know there's a follow-up documentary?' And he got me the DVD for a birthday present!

"So when I first met John, I was a bit starstruck. I feel like there's always been a thread that John Davidson has popped up in my life somewhere. So when the script came through, my agent went, 'Oh, and there's some information about...' And I went 'I know about John.' And I think a lot of people in my generation, he did have a big impact on them."

Mullan, on the other hand, didn't know Davidson's story at all. However, he did know a fair amount about Tourette's due to having a couple of friends with the condition, and was extremely impressed by the way Aramayo inhabited the character.

"I thought it was incredible," he said. "I was only on [set] for three days, and what absolutely blew me away was how the crew had said to me, 'You know he's staying in character?' And they didn't say it with any judgment – nobody was rolling their eyes.

"So I came on set, and I knew Rob anyway – we were mates from way back with Lord of the Rings and stuff. And the thing that I think one really has to remind oneself of is he's doing this in another accent... and Scottish accents are hard to do for non-Scots.

"So he's in the physicality of the character – he didn't mentally take that on, that's Looney Tunes – but he stayed in the physicality of the character. So as you were talking to him as Rob he was talking with a Scottish accent, but he had the tics, which then meant that when they shout turnover and action, you are already in that groove."

There was one scene in particular where Aramayo really got to let loose. It comes when John is introduced to a young woman who suffers from a similar form of Tourette's as him, and is asked by her parents if he wouldn't mind meeting her to help her realise she's not alone.

John agrees, and they end up meeting in the back of her parents' car, with the pair almost immediately letting out a torrent of abusive insults and other explicit remarks. After a minute or so, they look at each other and share a laugh – visibly healed by the experience. It's a brilliant scene, and one which Jones included after seeing similar interactions in documentaries.

"It came from watching documentaries and being aware that when people who have Tourette's come together, they often trigger each other," he explains. "I was talking to my wife about the character [of the younger woman]. She'd seen someone online who had a YouTube channel, and we contacted her. Her name was Andrea [Bisset], and she ended up playing a significant part in the film."

He adds: "She is able to mask her Tourette's at times, and when we put the scene together she needed to be relaxed enough to express her Tourette's, and in particular coprolalia – the type of Tourette's which only 10 per cent of people have, which is where you swear.

"I put her in a car, and I knew that she would trigger Rob as John, and I knew that John would trigger her. So we just let them go. But she was incredible, really."

Aramayo is also full of praise for Bisset's performance in the scene.

"What an amazing actor," he says. "I mean, really honestly, what an amazing actor. She's absolutely brilliant. We shot that scene quite early on, and it was really useful for [us] because then after the scene, we were able to sit down and say, 'Right, OK.'

"It sort of felt like a tone setter or a sort of pin in the map of, like, we can go there to that place. And I was so thankful that we did it so early on in the process, because then we were constantly referring to it as we were shooting."

Ahead of release, the film has already received positive reviews from critics – at the time of writing, it sits on a perfect 100 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes – and seems destined to be a real crowd-pleaser. Indeed, Peake says she's already seen a hugely enthusiastic response from people she knows simply based on the film's trailer.

"I've had lots of friends who've texted and said, 'Oh my God, this film looks brilliant... this looks like something that I really want to watch,'" she says. "And I think there's a real desire for these kind of stories that are very personal, those sort of British independents.

"I feel the excitement that has been gathered up – people I've not heard from for years have gone, 'Oh my God. I watched the trailer and it made me cry.' So I was like, 'Wow.' If this can just open a few minds and change a few hearts, that's great."

Meanwhile, there's been one response to the film in particular that Mullan was especially moved by, which came after the film premiered in Glasgow last month.

"Three young girls came up to me after and we were just chatting for a minute or so, and I didn't know if they'd been in the film, or they were associated with the film... and then suddenly I noticed a few tics. And it really surprised me, and shocked me a little bit, because – this sounds absurd – I hadn't thought of young women with Tourette's. Because the people I know with Tourette's are male.

"And when I spoke to these girls, one of them had never been to a cinema before – and she would be a young girl of 19 [or] 20. She'd never been to a film before. And that, again, never occurred to me. And I think what I love about the film... it makes you become very aware of what it is to live with that condition."

I Swear is now showing in UK cinemas.

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