Just Celebrity Magazine caught up with Tom Benedict Knight at the 25th Raindance Anniversary Gala screening of ‘Oh Lucy’.  Raindance Film Festival is the largest independent film festival in the UK. Celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2017, Raindance is based in the heart of London’s buzzing West End film district.

Raindance Film Festival is officially recognised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences USA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the British Independent Film Awards. Selected shorts will qualify for Oscar® and BAFTA considerations.

The festival runs from September 20th – October 1st, 2017.

It’s a very busy time for Tom Benedict Knight (Houdini, God The Father). On Monday, he was promoting The Kingsman: The Golden Circle, in which he stars as Angel, and yesterday he attended the opening gala of The Raindance Film Festival. Despite his busy schedule, he still took the time to talk to our celebrity journalist Liselotte Vanophem about independent movies, The Kingsman: The Golden Circle but also about himself.

Hi Tom, welcome to the Raindance Film Festival. Excited to be here?

Yeah, very excited to be here. Raindance is a very important festival.

What do you think is the strength of the independent films that are showed here?

A good way to describe it is that movies like The Kingsman and studio pictures are dependent. They depend on stuff like the sales, big budgets stars and actors. Independent movies don’t rely on that. Because of that, they could be really honest and really truthful about the story that the directors, producers or creators are trying to tell. I think there’s more honesty in independent film than there would be in studio or dependent movies.

At this moment, you’re starring in The Kingsman, a massive blockbuster, which has just been released. What is the main difference in making a blockbuster and an independent movie?

The time you get. On a low budget film, you might just have half a day while on big movies, like The Kingsman, you would have a week to get something. That time costs money and that’s were the investments go to. To the amount of time. Also to the visual and big name stars but ultimately it’s just about the time to be able to do what you need and want to do.

Most of the movies that are showed here are made by directors who directed a movie for the first time or actors who make their first appearance on the big screen […]

You know that Matthew Vaungh, who directed The Kingsman (both the first one as well as The Kingman: The Golden Circle) and Kick-Ass 2, was a Raindance attendee.

You’ve been in the business for a while now and do you have any advice for people who make films and want to get in the industry just like yourself?

The best thing I can think of is a Winston Churchill quote: “Succes is a case of going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm”. If you can keep the enthusiasm going as well as the passion for what you’re doing, just keep going and never give up, then you eventually get what you want. Whether it takes a week, a month, a year or even 10 years, you’re going to get there. So I would say keep going.

I guess you’re also going to keep going so do you have any upcoming projects then?

Yes, I have a serial killer film, which we’ll be shooting later on this year, which is an independent film. Very cool. It’s kind of like The Killing so that’s very exciting. Next year I have a bigger picture, a studio picture, which I’m in discussion about so I can’t tell the name of it. Hopefully that will be quite cool as well.

One last question then. Why do you think people should come and watch films here at Raindance?

If people don’t want to watch movies here at Raindance then ultimately the film industry is going to die because this is where it all starts. If people don’t come and experience film in its early stages, then where does the big thing come from? So, yeah it’s essential that people come and watch movies here.

Follow Tom on twitter: https://twitter.com/TOM_B_KNIGHT

Just Celebrity Film and Celebrity Reporter: Liselotte Vanophem