Jack O’Connell plays two brutal villains in ‘Sinners’ and ‘The Bone Temple’

Jack O’Connell is portraying two strikingly violent characters onscreen: Remmick, the jig‑dancing vampire in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, and Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, a violent cult leader in Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. The Bone Temple presents Jimmy as a postapocalyptic figure in a Britain decimated by the rage virus from Danny Boyle’s original film; the character briefly appears at the end of Boyle’s follow-up and comes to fuller fruition in DaCosta’s new film.

Alex Garland’s screenplay traces Jimmy’s perversions to childhood trauma — he watched his family killed while his father, a vicar, welcomed the undead as evidence of God’s judgment — and the character’s look mixes Teletubby‑like elements with an evocation of the late television presenter Jimmy Savile.

The article notes that, in that fictional universe, Jimmy would not know about Savile’s crimes because the world ended in the early 2000s. After leaks of early photos of actors playing Jimmy’s followers, who also dress like Savile, The Sun called it a "sick twist." O’Connell acknowledged that the look "certainly exists in order to unsettle." O’Connell, 35, said both characters share a mindset in which "they’re not conscious of it being wrong or bad to them, it’s their norm," and described his approach to Jimmy as expressed in the phrase "twisted gaiety." He said playing the two villains back to back was an opportunity to show distinction between the roles.

Key Topics

Culture, Jack O'connell, Sinners, Jimmy Crystal, Nia Dacosta, Jimmy Savile