‘It completely changed the course of my life’ – Shane Meadows on Dead Man’s Shoes at 20

“It was probably the happiest shoot of my life,” says Shane Meadows of Dead Man’s Shoes, his hard-hitting revenge drama that reminds us all why we shouldn’t mess with Paddy Considine. “There was so little expectation. We didn’t have trailers so we’d eat dinner off our lap. Sometimes, me and Paddy would sleep in the First Assistant Director’s car with the seats wound back. There was just something beautiful about it,” he smiles. “It taught me so much.”

The fact that Meadows can look back on the experience of making his fifth film with such wistful fondness is no small feat. Having landed on the scene with his 1996 debut feature Small Time, Meadows swiftly delivered a double-punch of Twenty-Four Seven with Bob Hoskins a year later, followed by A Room For Romeo Brass featuring a scene-stealing Considine in 1999.

For his next project, things ramped up. Working with big names like Rhys Ifans, Robert Caryle and Kathy Burke, 2002’s off-kilter rom-com Once Upon a Time in The Midlands saw Meadows’ play with his biggest budget to date – but when the film didn’t pan out quite as he’d planned, he feared his directing career might have stalled just as quickly as it had started.

“Working with those actors was a real honour but I’d lost my way quite badly,” he tells us, reflecting on the experience years later. “I knew how to make things that were well received but never did anything at the box office, and when you listen to other people’s advice and that doesn’t work either… I was still in my 20s and thinking about retiring,” admits Meadows. “Before Dead Man’s Shoes, I was literally on the verge of finding another way forward.”

Thankfully, a visit from Warp Films CEO Mark Herbert changed things. He was after shorts for a new DVD compilation and when he saw Meadows’ treasure-trove of unfinanced short films made with his college pal Considine, he became convinced the duo should do something new. “I didn’t quite answer in my pants and vest but I don’t think I was out of my pyjamas,” laughs the filmmaker, remembering meeting Herbert at an all-time low. “He came to buy a few DVDs and walked out saying ‘I think you should a make a feature film like those shorts with Paddy.’”

Released in 2004, Dead Man’s Shoes sees Considine play Richard, an ex-army man who returns to his Derbyshire hometown to seek vengeance on the local thug drug dealers who tortured his mentally impaired brother, Anthony, played by Toby Kebell in his film debut. Opting for less money but more creative freedom, Meadows was able to reignite his passion for filmmaking while focusing on a raw story of small-town bullying and aggression that spoke directly to both his and Considine’s shared personal experiences. It was a winning formula.

“We were able to make the film as we went along in a way that the film business still isn’t set up to do,” says Meadows of his loose approach and tendency to drift off-script. “We didn’t know who was going to get murdered first. We [told the cast] it might come down to the fact that you started off well but now you’re not acting very well so we’re going to kill you,” he laughs. “We were making the mould as we went along and it reignited my passion for filmmaking massively. The biggest education was that less money somehow meant more control – and most definitely helped to create a much more incredible film as a result.”

Meanwhile, Considine had experienced his own moment of growth. The pair first met on a Performing Arts course at Derbyshire’s Burton College and kept crossing paths as they routinely joined and ditched various would-be degrees. However, their partnership was cemented in 1999’s A Room For Romeo Brass where Considine played the vicious man-child Morrell, a guy whose humour hid his ability to flip into switchblade violence at the drop of a hat.

Making Romeo Brass was a lesson in what the pair could achieve together, with Morrell eventually leading Considine to Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2002 drama Last Resort and jobs in America. As Meadows found himself lost in work wobble, Considine’s career was on the up – and while the filmmaker happily jokes that as he was “trying to get a job at Tesco, Paddy was having his teeth whitened,” another collaboration was calling.

“I’d always known how special an actor he was but until Romeo Brass, I never knew friggin scary he could be,” says Meadows. “Dead Man’s Shoes was like unfinished business. Whereas Morrell was mostly funny and then changed, we thought ‘What if this fucking guy has already changed.’ I think that was exciting for Paddy,” he suggests. “On Romeo Brass, most of us were laughing our heads up but over time, Paddy had diluted things down so it was like a tap. You could turn it on and an unbelievable performance would come out. When it came to creating this avenging fallen angel, we got to places so much quicker – and with the subject matter of Dead Man’s Shoes, we certainly weren’t laughing our heads off.”

Co-writing with Meadows meant that Considine was just as involved in the minutiae of the film’s characters, especially his own. “It was next level. Paddy and I had conversations about the coat he wanted to wear, the foods Richard wanted to eat and the little fork he wanted to eat it off on the end of a multi-function knife. He came up with the gas mask idea,” says Meadows, referencing the film’s terrifying climax where a masked Richard takes his vengeance. “I’m pretty certain he’d been past an old World War One shop, seen an old gas mask and thought ‘Fucking Hell, that with a boiler suit on would look all kinds of scary.’”

Much like their budget, the pair had realised they could say more by doing less. It’s something that’s perfectly encapsulated in Richard’s tense first meeting with head drug dealer Sonny (Gary Stretch) where the former tells the latter exactly where he stands.

“Richard had developed and when we got on set, what was written didn’t fit. He was almost trying to get the better of him verbally and it felt too ‘written’,” says Meadows of the quiet power of Considine’s now-iconic ‘You’re fucking there, mate’ scene – one that was originally set to be much bigger. “We ended up shortening it down; it was almost like he couldn’t wait to get Sonny to piss off by answering his questions before he’s even asked them. Not playing games with him throws Sonny,” he adds. “He’s not a very nice character but he’s switched on enough to know the wires aren’t connected [with Richard] – and that seemed much more powerful. It feels almost like a Western. We never had any idea it’d become so iconic.”

Twenty years later, it’s something Meadows hears about regularly, adding yet another element to the significance and importance that Dead Man’s Shoes holds within his career so far. “The fact that I’d given Paddy that first leap and he came back when I was at my lowest ebb and pulled me back into the game… I’ll never forget that,” he says earnestly.

“Dead Man’s Shoes was the culmination of all these things that hadn’t quite worked and having one final swing, saying ‘this is me,’” continues the filmmaker. “It was partly our lives – some of the bullying and culture we’d come across as kids but never quite seen on screen. That’s why This is England was born,” reveals Meadows. “Had Dead Man’s Shoes died a death, I don’t think I would’ve had the confidence to tell a film specifically about me as a kid. It completely changed the course of my life.”