EXCLUSIVE: James Nelson-Joyce: The Business of Being Michael Kavanagh

As This City Is Ours returns, BAFTA-nominated actor James Nelson-Joyce is back at the centre of Liverpool’s criminal underworld. But beneath Michael Kavanagh’s ambition, there is a man who wants something rather more ordinary: a family, a future and a chance to get out.

Words - Tajinder Hayer

Creative Direction & Styling - Suzie Street at Eighteen Management

Photography - Sander Gabriel

Photography Assistance - Iggy Mugica

Styling Assistance - Emily Houghton

Grooming - Richard Wynne-Ellis

Shot on location at The Punch Room, London Edition

James wears Marks & Spencer

There is a particular kind of tension that comes with wanting to leave a world that has made you who you are. In This City Is Ours, Michael Kavanagh knows the life he has built, the people who inhabit it and the price of staying. What he cannot quite control is whether he can escape it on his own terms.

When the BBC drama returns for its second season, Michael’s priorities have shifted. The ambition and self-interest that drove him through the first series have given way to a more personal goal: a future with Diana, away from the criminal world that has shaped his life. He wants to live happily ever after. Naturally, things do not quite go to plan.

For James Nelson-Joyce, who plays Michael, that change in motivation is central to understanding where the character goes next. “The big arc for Michael is, he wants the end goal with Diana,” he explains. “Whereas in season one, there was a selfish aspect to it with Michael. He wanted what was his and what he worked for all those years, and then took off with Danny. Now, the starting point of season two is that his objective is to live happily ever after, have a child with Diana.”

It is a compelling proposition for a character whose world has rarely allowed room for uncomplicated happiness. This City Is Ours, dubbed the ‘Scouse Sopranos’ by The Times, found its audience through its portrayal of gangland Liverpool, but its appeal extends beyond the mechanics of criminal enterprise. Family, loyalty, love and ambition are not separate concerns here; they are the things that make the consequences of every decision more difficult to escape.

Michael is at the centre of that collision. Having established himself in the first series, he now faces the challenge of wanting something that may be fundamentally incompatible with the life he knows.

Autograph Pure Cotton Velvet Shawl Lapel Single Breasted Evening Blazer - £150, Autograph Auto Floral Scarf - £38, Autograph Slim Fit Stretch Performance Shirt - £45, Autograph Tailored Fit Wool Blend Suit Trousers - £90

Returning for a second season has its advantages. The cast and crew already know one another, and the relationships established during the first run provide a more comfortable starting point. “As an actor, I find you’re more comfortable with your co-stars, the makeup artists, everyone you see every day,” Nelson-Joyce says. “We already had that relationship there.”

But familiarity does not mean standing still. Michael has been written differently this time around, and the opening places him and Diana in Spain, a week after the events of the first season. They have one thing left to do before they can leave their old lives behind.

“They’re totally out,” Nelson-Joyce says. “You know, happy ever after, as they say. Obviously, it doesn’t go quite to plan.”

It is a neat starting point for a season in which the promise of escape is immediately complicated by the world Michael is trying to leave. His ambitions may have become more domestic, but the forces surrounding him have not necessarily changed with them.

The new episodes also give the supporting characters more room to develop. “We get to see a lot more of the other characters and the risks that are on the line for them,” he says. The result is a wider view of the relationships and competing interests that sustain the drama, even as Michael attempts to imagine a different life.

For Nelson-Joyce, one of the pleasures of returning is that Michael is not a fixed proposition. The character continues to evolve, and so does the actor’s understanding of him. That process is helped by the way the series is written.

“Stephen’s writing is” — as Nelson-Joyce puts it — “he writes his performance.” The actor receives the first two episodes, but the scripts continue to develop while filming is under way. Creator Stephen Butchard has a clear sense of where the story is heading, but he remains open to writing as he watches the rushes.

“He has a guide where he wants the stories to go, but he’s so free to write as he’s watching the rushes.”

For an actor, that approach requires a degree of trust. There is no complete roadmap to Michael’s journey, and the next development may not be apparent until the story is already moving. Nelson-Joyce admits that this can create a lingering uncertainty about whether he is making the right choices for what comes next.

“There’s always an overhanging pressure of what’s going to happen next,” he says. “Am I doing the right things for where we’re going next?”

It is a different kind of pressure from the usual expectation that a successful series must deliver more of what made it work the first time. Following the response to season one and his BAFTA nomination for Best Lead Male Performance, the stakes are higher. But Nelson-Joyce has learned that the answer is not to overthink every scene.

“One of the big things I’ve learned recently is relaxing. What will be, will be. You can do as much research as you want, and you can do all the prep work and homework, but there has to be a sense that when you step on set, you have the freedom to let it go and just read in the moment.”

For him, the essential part of acting is not imposing a performance on a scene, but remaining open to what is happening within it. “The big part with acting is freeing yourself up and just being in the moment and listening. Otherwise, it’s just a line reading, isn’t it?”

Nelson-Joyce has built a reputation for performances with a certain intensity. From Little Boy Blue and Time to A Thousand Blows and This City Is Ours, he has often been cast as men whose presence suggests trouble before they have said very much at all.

He is pragmatic about why. “It’s an industry in which I look a certain way. I have a certain look. I’m not your stereotypical leading man. I don’t look like the handsome men. I don’t look like them. Therefore, I’m not put into that box.”

Rather than fighting the roles that come his way, however, he is drawn to what makes a character difficult to understand. “I just am drawn to parts that intrigue me. It’s like, why does someone do what they do? That’s the biggest part of being an actor, I think: discovering and unearthing why a character would do certain things.”

The attraction is not necessarily the violence or menace itself, but the opportunity to explore a perspective far removed from his own. “It’s a lot more interesting if a character does something that I, for one, wouldn’t do.”

That distinction matters with Michael. His capacity for violence is only one part of the character; the relationship with Diana reveals another side, while his interactions with the men around him bring out different instincts and behaviours. Nelson-Joyce enjoys that complexity.

“The beauty of Michael is that you see one version of Michael at home with Diana, and then you’ll see a totally different version of him when he’s with Banksy or when he’s with Jamie. Those are the things I like doing.”

He sees those shifts as a reflection of ordinary human behaviour, rather than a trick reserved for the screen. “I’m not the same person I am with my mum as I am when I’m playing football,” he says. “We all do it. We all treat our nephews differently to how we treat our mum. That’s just how life is.”

The work, then, is to find the layers beneath the obvious characteristics. A threatening man who is only ever threatening is a limited proposition. A man who can be tender in one setting and ruthless in another is far more interesting — and considerably harder to play convincingly.

Nelson-Joyce’s preparation for Michael begins with research, but it does not end with the script. He has looked to Macbeth as a reference point, reflecting the early ambition for This City Is Ours to explore Shakespearean power and rivalry within the drug world. Crime documentaries and conversations with people familiar with that background have also helped him build a sense of the character’s environment.

Then there are the details that might appear incidental but help make a character tangible: music, scent and the small rituals that create a sense of inhabiting another person’s life.

“Acting for me is a sensory thing. It’s not an office job. It’s about doing it. Anything that will help me.”

For Michael in the second season, that includes Creed fragrance. It is a small detail, but an illuminating one. Michael is not necessarily vain, yet he is conscious of how he presents himself. His clothes and grooming are part of the impression he makes, even if they are not the most important things about him.

“He’s got his shit together, isn’t he?” Nelson-Joyce says. “He always looks the part and dresses well. It’s not the most important thing about him, but he’s always well put together.”

The point is not simply to make Michael look convincing. These details help Nelson-Joyce enter the character’s world, giving him something physical to draw on when the cameras roll.

Alongside This City Is Ours, Nelson-Joyce has completed The Man Who Stole Portugal, his first feature film in a full lead role. Based on the extraordinary true story of a man who exploited Portugal’s banking system in the 1920s, the film follows a conman whose actions helped flood the country with counterfeit banknotes and brought it close to financial collapse.

The story was new to Nelson-Joyce when he received the script. He was struck not only by the audacity of the deception, but by the circumstances that made it possible: a country struggling after the First World War, widespread poverty and a man who recognised an opportunity in a system vulnerable to manipulation.

“He was self-taught to read and write,” Nelson-Joyce says. “He foresaw a hole in the system.”

The scale of the story made an immediate impression. “I was just like, ‘Wow, this is a big Catch Me If You Can.’ It’s a cool story.”

Taking the lead in a feature brought a different scale of production, from the period costumes to the locations, but he does not see the fundamental task as changing. “For me as an actor, all I care about is serving the story. You’re there to tell a story in the most realistic, three-dimensional way. That’s our job.”

It is a straightforward philosophy, but one that connects the film to his work on television. Whether playing a fictional gangster or a real-life conman, he is interested in the people behind the actions: what they want, what they believe they are entitled to, and how they justify the choices they make.

When it comes to choosing what comes next, the people involved matter as much as the part itself. “First of all, it’s always the team. It’s the collaboration — the show, the director, the writing, the actors. You want that collaboration on set.”

After that, he looks for characters with enough dimension to sustain a performance. He is less interested in playing someone who simply announces his intentions than in discovering the contradictions that make a person believable.

It is a useful way of understanding Michael Kavanagh, too. For all the criminality and the ambition, the second season of This City Is Ours finds him reaching for something recognisable: the possibility of a life beyond the one he has built. Whether he can get there is another matter. For Nelson-Joyce, the interest lies in playing the man who wants it — and in discovering, one scene at a time, what he is prepared to do to make it happen.

Season 2 of This City Is Ours airs on Sunday 25 October 2026 at 9pm on BBC One.

Tajinder Hayer