Anson Boon

The up-and-coming actor is set to make waves as Johnny Rotten in Danny Boyle’s Sex Pistols mini-series. Having fully immersed himself in a world of anarchy, the issue 30 cover star ruminates on his physical transformation and the joy of celebrating underdogs

To become John Lydon, Anson Boon took a field trip to London’s King’s Road. The 22-year-old actor made his way to Worlds End, Vivienne Westwood’s boutique in Chelsea, and searched for something that would make him feel like a Sex Pistol. “I remember going in there and buying a bright pink pair of trousers with underwear on the outside,” he says with a smirk. “Just to know what it was like to buy something super unique, and then go out and wear it. To see if people would stare. They do, by the way.”

Boon would be wise to get used to people staring at him. He is about to get recognised a lot more now he’s starring in Pistol, Craig Pearce and Danny Boyle’s new limited series for FX. Set in London in 1975, the six-part show is based on Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones’ 2016 memoir. Boon plays lead singer John Lydon, the punk prophet better known as Johnny Rotten.

Speaking over Zoom, from the rooftop of a hotel in Los Angeles, Boon squints a little in the sunlight. Wearing a lime green Commes des Garçons t-shirt (a Christmas present from his mum), a pair of AirPods and a gleaming Hollywood smile, his sunny demeanour doesn’t exactly scream anarchy.

“I’ve got this distinct memory of my mum driving me and my brother to our local cinema, which she used to do most weekends,” he says, of growing up in Peterborough, about an hour north of Cambridge. Next to the cinema, he remembers, there was a water tower. “It’s funny, because when I got to LA, I realised that all the studios had water towers, and water towers are part of this real Hollywood image.” Living in “the middle of nowhere” and watching movies with his younger brother, Boon began to dream of being on the other side of the screen.

He’s since worked with Kate Winslet and Susan Sarandon, on the late Roger Michell’s tear-jerking family drama Blackbird, played a young Logan Marshall-Green in the Netflix series The Defeated, set in post-WWII Berlin, and starred in Sam Mendes’ Oscar-winning war epic 1917, shot by the legendary British cinematographer Roger Deakins to appear as a single, unbroken take.

Boon went to what he describes as “the most normal, average secondary school you could possibly imagine”, attending drama clubs after class. At 16, he went on to his local technical college. “All of my best friends were going to do carpentry and brickwork and plumbing, and I went to do theatre studies, which they all thought was hilarious,” he says. “I stayed there for about six months, and I realised this wasn’t getting me to where I wanted to be.”

He dropped out, even though in the UK, full-time education is compulsory until age 18. “The council used to ring up my mum like ‘Why is Anson not in education?’, and I just kept saying to her, ‘Tell them, he’s working as an actor!’” he says. Soon, he was googling “London acting agent” and cold emailing the people he hoped would get him into open auditions and commercials. “I must’ve sent out over 100 emails. I think I got two responses,” he recalls. One became his first agent.

“Growing up wanting to be an actor in a place where people aren’t actors can make you feel like an outsider,” he says. That feeling was something that helped him to connect with the character of John Lydon, a working class misfit who was kicked out of school at the age of 15. “He had this determination to do something that was so out of the box for him.”

Boon put himself forward for a part in the series during the first lockdown of the pandemic. He had originally submitted a self-tape audition for “general Pistol”, but was asked to come in and read for the role of Lydon. “I distinctly remember the casting brief was: ‘Intense, witty, lacerating, a natural born provocateur, classical cheekbones with a tortured, angular frame, utterly compelling’. It blew my mind,” says Boon, becoming animated. Lydon auditioned for the Sex Pistols too, delivering an out-of-tune rendition of Alice Cooper’s ‘I’m Eighteen’ in front of manager-to-be Malcolm McLaren, in Vivienne Westwood’s clothing store, SEX. Boon recreated Lydon’s outlandish audition for his own.

He and Boyle hit it off, bonding over a cup of tea overlooking the River Thames. “Our offices were the old ITV offices, right on the Southbank, so we had a view from Parliament to St Paul’s.” Both landmarks were the backdrop to the Pistols’ playful cruise down the Thames in June 1977, intended as a middle finger to the Queen’s silver jubilee. “I was immediately plunged into that kind of world. I was like, wow, we are in London, and we are about to take on a proper London story, about a proper London band.” He’s not convinced there is an obvious punk equivalent today. “I’m so romantic about that period of 1975–1978,” he says. “What they did was so profound and so special, I think we allow that to be timeless.”

In Pistol, the debonair McLaren, who is played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster of The Queen’s Gambit, describes Lydon as “an untutored genius” who stinks of “rancid brilliance”. Neither Boon nor Lydon had any kind of formal training. Both took a bracing approach to learning on the job. Still, there’s one person who he didn’t get to talk to when preparing for the role.

Lydon has not endorsed the project, filing (and ultimately losing) a lawsuit against his former bandmates over the use of the Sex Pistols’ music in the show. “The Sex Pistols have become the property of Mickey fucking Mouse,” he told the Telegraph, citing Disney’s ownership of the show’s network, FX.

“In an ideal world, yeah, I would love to meet with and speak to John,” says Boon. “I felt a huge responsibility to respect this artist that I so admire, and that I genuinely think is a genius.” That said, he’s keen to point out that as an actor, the task is to tell a dramatic story. “You want to chase authenticity,” he says, “but it’s not a documentary. It’s a piece of drama, written by a screenwriter.”

Boon felt it was important, however, to approach portraying a real person with the utmost care. He threw himself into the research process, and now considers himself a Sex Pistols expert. “I should probably work in a museum about them,” he says, grinning. “I wouldn’t even need a script for the tour, because I’d know it all.” He read Jones’ memoir, and all three of Lydon’s books, before creating, in his words, “this shrine, to all things Rotten”. He compiled scraps of clothing, and printouts of the graffiti Lydon sprayed all over the band’s original rehearsal space on Denmark Street, in Soho. He describes his dressing room on set as “covered in photos of him, photos of the band, photos of his family, timelines, bits of material”. He decorated his trailer, to the point where he couldn’t see the walls.

In the audition scene, Boon channels Lydon’s staccato physicality, contorting his body and blowing his nose, shoving the used tissue in his would-be bandmates’ faces. Lydon had meningitis growing up, Boon says, an illness that took him out of school. “He had long lasting health effects from that, like sinus issues, but also issues with his posture and his back,” he says, explaining how those issues informed the singer’s physical presence on stage.

“I injured myself a lot,” says Boon. “My jaw popped out of place from singing in such a high pitch with such intensity. I sprained everything. I nearly broke my coccyx.” In the Sex Pistols’ debut TV performance, Lydon performs a dramatic drop, arching into a backbend. “In the first take, I miscalculated,” says Boon. He ended up smashing into the drum kit.

Learning to look like a rock star involved an intensive, three-month-long band camp. Boon, who had never sung before, worked with a vocal coach who helped him raise his naturally sonorous voice by two entire octaves. He would dress for band practice in tight leather trousers and brothel creepers. “They’re super tight on your foot,” he says of the chunky, high-soled shoes. “They’re quite restrictive, in the way the bondage trousers are as well; you can’t move your legs wide. As soon as you put them on, it completely affects your physicality.” The wardrobe gave him the confidence to become someone who never retreated in front of the microphone.

Boon describes Lydon as “a voice of the people” who was “angry at his situation”. Lydon’s 2014 memoir is titled Anger Is an Energy. “He was 18 years old when he wrote lyrics for ‘God Save the Queen’,” says Boon. “‘Anarchy in the UK’ is some of the best poetry of that generation. I think he was channelling his rage in the form of creativity.” It’s Lydon’s will to transform his own life, Boon thinks, that is worth celebrating today.

“The boys in the Sex Pistols, they had no prospects, no easy route into success. You’re looking at five working class boys that revolutionised music, fashion and culture. To me that is always a story that will be relevant and worth telling – the underdog powering through and succeeding.”

Anson Boon wears Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello SS22 throughout

Photography Ian Kenneth Bird

Styling Mitchell Belk

Grooming Liz Taw

Production Lock Studios