The films of Ken Loach... I still go back to them. Kes, Riff-Raff, My Name is Joe – they're the ones I love.
We wanted to make a film that had the sense of people actually living, so we worked with a lot of non-professional actors and developed the script as we went along. This approach has its roots in Italian neorealism, in films like Bicycle Thieves, where the lives of ordinary people are depicted with such honesty.
— Ken Loach · Sight & Sound (originally published May 1991, archived on Mubi Notebook)
We worked with non-professional actors and developed the script as we went along, an approach rooted in Italian neorealism and films like Bicycle Thieves, where ordinary people are depicted with such honesty.