“I Really Want to Show People What I’m Capable Of”: Kieron Moore on the Fight Behind Blue Film

In Elliot Tuttle’s provocative chamber piece and essay on perversion, Blue Film, Manchester debutant Kieron Moore makes a career-defining opening cinematic statement as absolute as one could ever dream of.  

Blue Film is far from an easy watch; this year’s most uncomfortable story spotlights a fetish camboy and the stranger who has hired him for the night. A visceral throat punch, no less, comes with the rapid realisation that such a portrait forces the viewer to sit down, vulnerable and naked, alongside a convicted pedophile character and his significant counterpart. Not seen since Todd Solondz’s Happiness, or L.I.E., the first sighting of a young Paul Dano, Blue Film is an American anomaly on a scale where very few have dared to venture. So, with stars in his eyes, what business could a poet and former boxer from an English mill town want from a project that sits firmly on the fringe? 

“In hindsight I never thought a role like this would be my first movie,” 29-year-old Kieron Moore reflects on his leading role, a cinematic debut. He’s calling in from his mum’s place: “It’s a main road in Droylsden [in Greater Manchester], like it’s not pretty, you know what I mean.” There’s a humility in the way Moore talks about his hometown. His Mancunian accent carries charm and dry wit. “I feel very lucky that it is, and it kind of makes sense for me when I think back now and how my career is unfolding.” Introduced to us in his tighty-whities through a webcam, flexing his muscles and showing off his pretty package as he dirty-talks his community of cash-in-hand “faggot” worshipers, Moore’s Aaron Eagle demands your undivided attention; at the same instant, inevitable physical attraction.  

The scene was, in fact, his first day of filming. Perhaps the most intimidating way imaginable to begin, yet the anxiety before doing an acting job acts more like an adrenaline rush. “I mean, that was intense. I’m petrified as to whether I’ve fooled everyone, and that’s my favourite space to live in. What a gateway into the character. When I read the script, I knew that it was just special, simple as that.” By the third take, fear paralysis metamorphoses into a freeing, liberating form. “I still struggle watching that scene though; I just can’t imagine that I would ever do it. That’s probably the most proud I am, all these bits in the movie, but that’s the one where I’m kind of like, ‘That’s not Kieron.’” 

Over the course of one long night, the carefully constructed online persona of Aaron is tested to the extreme. Blue Film has been described as an accumulation of a lifetime of private thoughts, of sex, fetish, and relationships. As Aaron comes face to face with the utmost perversions, his vanity dissipates; vulnerabilities are exposed in a sharp, quietly moving study of emotional damage. Moore has the same appetite for risk as his sparring days, it appears. “I just couldn’t help but think that any actor would leap at the chance to play a character that is complicated and just human, really. You know, messy.” That terminal word is ideal for an actor who has little interest in characters that arrive predefined.  

Moore is in awe of Tuttle. Owning such a strong voice at 23-years-old, when he wrote Blue Film, it was “a no-brainer, a blessing, really” to sign on. “I love all kinds of cinema, and I think films should be easy to watch at times; I don’t think it should be one thing,” Moore admits. “But I am sort of tired of being told how to feel, and this movie doesn’t give you that at all.” Watching Saltburn, with all its elements of surprise, Moore found himself drawn to the dangerous unpredictability of Barry Keoghan. “I saw a character that’s not linear... there’s an adventurousness to him and, again, that messy complexity.” He subsequently told his team, “If anything sort of dangerous comes through, or a bit out there that people aren’t going to expect, I really want to show people what I’m capable of.” 

Having boxed since the age of five, Moore's background gives colour to the midnight-tinted film’s themes around masculinity. He started competing at 10, eventually stepping away in his twenties after about 75 fights. For years, he kept that part of himself separate. “I always went into acting keeping it quiet, really, then it just sort of... the beast rolls. Boxing has helped me with what I do now, in the sense that I’ve just been around so many people.” His family and friends from home might not fully comprehend the roles he’s accepted, but they are proud, nonetheless. “They just can’t believe that I’m able to do what I do, and that’s a nice reminder of the journey of it,” he beams. 

That’s the real beauty of this job. To connect with as many people as possible, including Tony Award winner Reed Birney on Blue Film. In an extraordinarily short shooting period of just 13 days, the pair, who could not be more opposite in build and background, had to establish an intense, difficult character dynamic. “We were finding it as we went, which I think is kind of why it feels so human. It’s kind of like you bring all your tools to the table, and then you have to chip away and see what sort of sticks.” 

Playing the part of Aaron led Moore down an investigative path, tackling the unorthodox relationship between performance and identity that exists within online sex work. Tuttle’s pitch deck contained adult stars he’d considered while fleshing out his protagonist. Moore’s acting coach, a gay man, provided insight into the industry. “It was their accounts to sell the product, to link you to it, so it was like this persona on top of a persona,” Moore shares. “I was fascinated by that, because obviously a lot of the movie is Aaron unravelling into Alex again.”  

Research aside, the real work, Moore says, was internal. “We all deal with questions of shame and loneliness. Sex is such an interesting thing, and I think it’s guided by shame, our relationships with ourselves.” He believes there’s a real need right now for cinema that explores humanity: “I have this theory, which is a bit tinfoil, in this most connected generation of all time, I think we’re actually really lonely and disconnected.” It’s a perspective that echoes long after the lingering actions of Blue Film. “I think it’s important now that artists get their stories out there. All my favourite actors are poets, whether they know it or not. When I watch a performer that really sings to me, I go, ‘There’s a poetry to that.’” 

Since a very early age, Moore was inspired by his father, a “stone-faced, working-class, masculine man,” to begin writing poetry. Though he wasn’t very literate, he used to write little poems for Moore’s mum on sticky notes, which he would leave in her cup with the tea bag, ready for the water in the morning. “I would see them, and was always quite fascinated by this well of passion underneath this sort of void. I guess I just stole it really, like all things I do as an actor.” 

There’s “a hope, and an extreme fear, and pessimism, and a beauty within it all,” he adds. Poetry, a form of art as a way of seeing the world, has come to shape what kind of actor Moore ultimately wants to become. Poetry and acting have become inseparable in Moore’s understanding of performance, even if releasing his poems publicly remains a challenge. “I only ever wrote poetry for myself, never to monetise it or anything. It feels weirdly gloaty, more than acting.” He has hundreds of poems now, a small number of which live on a “cathartic” Instagram side account: @km.thewords. “I have this one that I’m very proud of that will hopefully come out soon. It’s a bit brash, but I think it’s important.” 

Despite the solid viewership and strong fanfare surrounding Boots, the Netflix series where Moore was last seen as macho Marine Slovacek, its cancellation after one season arrived in the thick of a worrying political economy for the arts. “I try not to spend too much time thinking about what could have been, and just love it for what it was,” he says. Wondering about the precarious nature of queer stories, the stakes are different, however, with the taboo Blue Film finding its audience in a not-so-commercial ecosystem. “There was a very real chance this movie was never going to be seen; we were getting rejected, like, all the time. Independent cinema, we get to make sure it’s talked about, and it gives power to the people, which I think is really beautiful. Sort of sticks it to these conglomerates, I guess.”  

Then, with a mischievous final instruction: “Tell all your friends to go and be made uncomfortable.” 

Blue Film is in UK cinemas now