Game of Thrones' Alfie Allen recalls "isolating" and "tough times" working on series as he reunites with showrunners for new role

The son of actor and comedian Keith, and the younger brother of pop star Lily, Alfie could have ridden through life as a lesser Allen – but instead, he’s forged a career as an in-demand actor in big-budget, often violent TV shows and films. For example, today he’s overcoming travel exhaustion to talk about his lead role in Sky’s new high-octane thriller Atomic.

Inspired by Vanity Fair journalist William Langewiesche’s book The Atomic Bazaar – an exposé of the illicit trade in nuclear weapons technology – it sees Allen’s drug smuggler Max getting caught up in a plot to traffic enriched uranium across North Africa and the Middle East.

“Max has made some questionable life choices, which is something we can all relate to at points in our life,” says Allen. “But he’s kind of lovable, and a bit vulnerable.”

In the first episode, Max lays out his moral code: “I’m a driver. I don’t kill people.” For Allen, spending hours behind the wheel in the Moroccan desert last summer was one of the perks of the job. “I love driving long distances,” he says. “Plus, as an actor, I like to have other things to think about, rather than just saying the lines.”

He also does a lot of running in the show – often while carrying a heavy bag of supposedly hazardous nuclear material – but says the heat wasn’t too punishing. “September is when it gets really hot, and we were out by August. It wasn’t like on [BBC drama] SAS Rogue Heroes, where we were in the middle of the Sahara Desert. The hottest day on that shoot was 53 degrees, which was insane. It just made you delirious.”

But Max isn’t even the biggest wrong ’un on Allen’s showreel: previous roles have included Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in McVeigh and a Nazi officer in Jojo Rabbit. He was also, lest we forget, involved in killing Keanu Reeves’s puppy in the first John Wick movie, unwittingly kickstarting a four-movie bloodbath of frenzied ultraviolence. “I was in New York doing a play, and whenever I was out, I’d constantly hear people shouting, ‘Hey, you killed John Wick’s dog, man!’ ” Allen laughs. “I have great memories of doing that film.”

Next up, he’s set to work with David Benioff and DB Weiss – the showrunners who cast him as Theon Greyjoy on Game of Thrones in 2011 – for the second series of their Netflix sci-fi thriller 3 Body Problem. “They called me and said, ‘We’ve got this part we’d like you to do’. I read the stuff they sent me, we had a chat, and I immediately said, ‘Yeah, I’m in’. Dave and Dan [DB] are great writers and showrunners. They know how to keep a show going, with all the moving parts that involves.”

Seven years after filming wrapped on the final season of what was then the biggest show on TV, Allen now looks back on the whole Thrones circus with “mostly fond memories”. The qualifier being, presumably, because the role of Theon – who went from Ironborn royalty to the broken, tortured “pet” of Iwan Rheon’s sadistic Ramsay Bolton – took its emotional toll?

“Yeah, definitely,” he nods. “By season 3, I was in this dungeon with Iwan. It was isolating, and the content was pretty dark – especially when I was being tortured. Iwan and I would regularly go out and play pool the whole night, and not talk about what we’d done during the day. And I also had stuff going on in my life – my grandfather was passing away during season 3. So there were definitely tough times.”

His life is now quite different from when Benioff and Weiss first brought him to Westeros. Today, Allen is talking over video from the friend’s house he’s currently crashing in. “I’m renting out my London place at the moment,” he explains. “Home these days is LA, most of the time, because I have a six-year-old there [a daughter, from his former relationship with American DJ and fashion designer Allie Teilz]. That’s where I’m going after this week – I’ll be there for three weeks, then back here for 3 Body Problem, then back to LA until more work comes in.” Which, on current form, probably won’t be very long.

He likes LA. “There’s a positivity to it,” he says. “People say it’s very transactional, but I think that’s the same anywhere – in LA it’s just less hidden. It’s also a beautiful place to be: you’ve got mountains and desert, you’ve got the beach and the rainforest. And when your kid is speaking in a Californian accent, then it’s home.”

Growing up in London, Allen was diagnosed with ADHD, and expelled from various expensive schools around the south of England. “It was a big part of my childhood,” he recalls. “I always needed outlets for whatever I was feeling, whether it was acting, or sport. These days, I don’t actively talk about how my ADHD is making me feel, it’s just something that makes me who I am.”

At the age of 20, he acquired notoriety as the subject of his big sister’s not entirely flattering song Alfie, in which she entreated him to get up off his “lazy arse” and stop “wasting your life away”. But, despite having no formal training, he soon proved his acting chops, taking over from Daniel Radcliffe in the stage revival of Peter Shaffer’s Equus; he’s gone on to earn both Emmy and Tony nominations (for Game of Thrones and the Broadway production of Hangmen).

So would it be fair to say he’s having the last laugh? “Oh God, I dunno,” he says, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “I don’t look at it as anyone having the last laugh. It’s just more about… life’s challenges.” He didn’t find Lily’s song in any way motivational? “No, I don’t think it was. I always wanted to be an actor.”

I ask if, as the scion of Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, acting and showbiz might be in the genes? “I don’t know, I mean… I’d have to kind of know somebody else’s experience,” he mumbles. Talking about his family really makes him squirm, doesn’t it? “I have been squirming, you’re right,” he laughs. “I’ve been moving around in my chair. Yeah, I’d just rather not talk about them.”

But doesn’t the fact that he’s so in demand – as arguably the most successful Allen – allow him to loosen up a bit on that score? “Yeah, I guess so,” he says, not sounding hugely convinced. “I just don’t want to be reactive to those things. Maybe I’ll get so bored [with dodging questions] I’ll have a change of heart at some point.”

He flashes a brief, half-apologetic smile. “But not yet.”

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