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Primeval star Andrew Lee Potts has revealed he is a major talent behind the camera as well as on screen after winning the £10,000 top prize in Britain’s biggest short film competition.
Potts, 35, who played quirky Connor Temple in ITV’s sci-fi drama, took the Grand Prix prize at the reed.co.uk Short Film Awards with Photo Finish, a film set and shot in a photo booth, starring his sister, Sarah-Jane Potts, from Casualty, and her husband, Joseph Millson, most recently seen in Jimmy McGovern’s Banished.
He was thrilled to have been honoured in a ceremony at Bafta. “Just because I’m an actor and in the industry doesn’t mean it’s any easier to make a film so it was lovely to be recognised for something that came out of my head.”And he said he would love to direct a full-length movie on the back of his short film success.
“A feature would be amazing. But I would like to do a feature that I had quite a lot of control over,” he said.“The passion for directing has always been there since I was young but acting took over and I was in front of the camera all the time. But the acting’s just not enough for me. I love it but I always need to be doing something else as well. I’m addicted to film-making.”
He has been directing short films and music videos since 2006. Photo Finish was based on a film Potts made for his sister’s wedding.
He will use his award winnings to buy new equipment and cover the costs of his current project, a four-part online sci-fi series, Wireless, which explores if artificial intelligence had a heart.
The Bradford-born actor, who now lives in Richmond, started his career in children’s television and got his big break playing a witch in Pete Postlethwaite’s Macbeth. He was most recently seen in Channel 4’s The Mill.
For more information: reed.co.uk
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