Joe Gill reveals personal connection to hard-hitting new role worlds away from Emmerdale’s Finn Barton

Emmerdale fans will best know actor Joe Gill as loveable geek Finn Barton, but his newest role couldn’t be more different to his soap counterpart.

Joe left the Dales in 2017 when Finn was tragically killed off, and has since turned his hand to other projects, including hard-hitting new film Treading Water.

Treading Water tells the story of Danny, played by Joe, who is released from prison and is tasked with getting his life back on track while battling a drug addiction and obsessive compulsive disorder.

During the film, he has a chance encounter with past love Laura (Becky Bowe), which sparks an obsession that leads to tragic consequences.

When I got the chance to chat to Joe about the film, which was nominated for three British Independent Film Awards, his passion for the project was clear – even over video call.

A Manchester native, he expressed his joy at getting to show off the city he calls home, as well as explaining how he brought his own experiences and insecurities to the role.

And of course, I wasn’t going to let him get away without turning the clock back to his Emmerdale days, and taking us all on a trip down memory lane!

Congratulations on the film. Can you tell us about your character, Danny, and what drew you into the role?

Danny’s a very interesting individual. He’s a man who suffers from very severe intrusive thoughts and obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD. At the same time, in order to keep his mind at bay he’s also addicted to drugs. So he’s caught in a massive, massive spiral.

He’s seeing things in his mind, internally, he’s trying to control things that aren’t in his control externally by having these very individual quirks and traits and he’s trapped in a cycle of always having mind-altering substances. He’s in a battle against himself. There’s a lot of self-conflict that’s going on within him.

It was that, really, that drew me in – a man who’s trying to find his way out. And of course the fact that he’s from Manchester and he’s representing a demographic of people that I know very well, in a city I’m from and love. It was the perfect role to play.

The film tackles some heavy issues like mental health and drug use. Was it important for you to be able to portray those on screen?

Danny represents a person going through a lot of battles, a real person. What’s great about this film is that, though Danny is the protagonist of the piece, he isn’t all good. There’s light and shade to all of us and not everything Danny does in this film is the right thing to do.

But for me it’s always about finding out why this person believes it is the right thing to do. Because he isn’t a well man at times. To give people like that justice, I believe was important. This man is trying to better himself even though not everything he does is great.

To play people with this mindset and going through these battles was a very personal thing to me because I believe we can relate to a lot of people we know through the people in the film and people like Danny.

I care about him a lot. A lot of the things he does are not things people would usually do but why does he believe that? That’s the interesting question Gino [Evans, writer and director] has asked in this film that I believe is very endearing.

He has compulsions linked to his OCD that carry on throughout the film. What research did you do to nail those aspects of the character?

I do little things with all of my projects to get into the mindset of these characters. I speak to people, I do the research online and reading.

Danny’s very high on the end of a spectrum with intrusive thoughts and OCD, but they are very taboo subjects to think about. It’s all about someone inevitably trying to control things that are out of their control.

As an artist and an actor I’m in control of very little sometimes in my career. You always say as an actor you’ve got to use what you have within you, so I also used a few of my own insecurities and heightened them up to the max through the eyes and the life of the character as well. It was very interesting because I found a lot of connection with him there, personally.

Did you have an idea of what people with OCD experience or was it something you discovered while working on this film?

A lot of the traits and quirks of Danny and his compulsions were already within the script.

Gino said there needed to be these things that happened within the narrative with Danny’s compulsions but ‘it needs to be very natural and I want to give you free rein as to how and when he does it’.

So really no one knew how many or few times I was going to do things. On a few takes I did them a lot more and vice versa. Then Gino edited it in a way that he believed was best for the character.

It’s not just when he has his compulsions, but a lot of OCD is also when he is containing not to do it. It’s almost more powerful sometimes when you see him struggling to not do it, because there are times when he doesn’t want to show it.

That’s what we wanted to do, we wanted to make it real. It’s not just about when you see him physically have these struggles, it’s when you see him physically struggling to not do them. That’s almost as powerful.

The film doesn’t glamourise mental health issues and there’s a scene towards the end where Danny talks about how it’s affected his life. Was it important to show people that they weren’t alone in what they’re going through?

You don’t want to go too far with the character and the glamorisation of it, because the film is not that at all. We wanted to make every single person in this film a real person.

If you go too far with a character like Danny you end up with a different character in a different film to everyone else, and it’s not that. We really wanted to make him three dimensional and like a real person.

That’s what this film represents. It represents a demographic of people that aren’t represented enough in British cinema. It’s always about trying to find the heart of the character and not necessarily just the character traits.

How different was this experience compared to other roles you’ve worked on, such as Finn Barton in Emmerdale?

The characters couldn’t be more different from each other! Obviously a lot of people will know me from Finn and he’s different in every way, especially appearance.

Shooting a film is very different to shooting television, especially in something like Emmerdale. In Emmerdale there’s always going to be an episode before and an episode after. You film 12 episodes over two weeks so you’re constantly in the flow of this big machine that has to keep churning out constant content.

A film is very different. It’s a one-off project and it’s really compact and you only have one story to tell, as opposed to a continuous story that may last forever. So the way that you film it is different.

There’s more room for slight improvisation on days if a director likes a certain shot and the sun’s setting in a certain way, or he likes what you’re doing and it’s a little bit different, there’s more scope to go, ‘Let’s use that, let’s do that, that was cool.’ That’s what happened in this film.

They’re two different ways of making a product and I’m very blessed to have done them both. It’s great, as an artist, seeing how different things work. At the end of the day all I do is act, but it changes depending on what type of production you’re in and this is a very different production to Emmerdale in every sense of the word.

The film has been shown at film festivals. What’s the audience reaction been like?

It’s been amazing. We made a proper, great indy film from Manchester that wasn’t done on much money at all and everyone got down and dirty and worked really hard to make this film. There were a lot of long, hard-fought days and nights.

The feedback has been amazing. I’ve been on this journey with this film since 2022 and it’s incredible because it’s not actually come out yet but it almost feels like it has come out. Hopefully we can continue to ride the wave we’ve been on because it has received lovely feedback. People have felt very connected to it.

I don’t believe there are many films like this out there at all. It’s shot in the north of England in the heart of Manchester. We’ve shot in locations in Manchester that you don’t see a lot on the big cinema screen.

It’s received a lot of great feedback for the representation of how the city looks as well. It’s exactly right for the city. I hope we’ve done the city and the people proud.

It’s been seven years since you left Emmerdale. Do you still keep in touch with some of your co-stars?

I still can’t believe it’s been seven years. I have such fond memories from Emmerdale. I’m still very close to Anthony Quinlan and Mike Parr, who played both of my brothers.

Those guys were my brothers and what was great about us is we were brothers off set as well. I joined Emmerdale at 19 and Mike and Quinny were about ten years older than me and they really took me under their wing. I learned a lot from those guys and I’ll always hold them very dearly in my heart.

I’m in touch with a lot of people. That’s the great thing about social media. Obviously I can’t see everyone every day, you go your separate ways. But my brothers Mike and Quinny will always be good friends.

Do you have any favourite storylines or memories from your time on Emmerdale?

I was always very fortunate because I think I was in quite an integral family in the show, the Bartons.

There’s this thing called Super Soap Week where the soaps kind of go head to head. Our family was involved in a helicopter crash. It was our family wedding and the helicopter came down on us.

I was also involved in the very big car crash, I think in 2015, where we went down to Longcross Studios to film it and you felt like you were in a feature film because it was such high production. I have very good memories of being part of big storylines like that.

I was very proud to play Finn. He was a very individual character. He had his own quirky sense of humour. He was very different to all his other family members and I really loved getting to know him over time and working with the writers on how to make him very individual.

I’ve got lots of memories, lots of great one-liners that I remember doing. Just having good fun on set. Those are the memories I’ll take away from it. When you’re in a family like I was and you all get along you sometimes say to yourself, ‘I’m at work here, and I’m just acting with my best mates having a laugh.’ I’ll always have a special place for the Dales.

I do miss sunny mornings going into the Emmerdale village. It’s the most beautiful place in the world. It’s literally a paradise. If there’s one thing I miss it’s having a coffee walking through the Emmerdale village in the morning.

What’s next for you?

We’ll have to see. In the life of an actor, who knows? I recently did a BBC Radio Four project that’s just come out online and on the radio.

Through this film coming out I’ve managed to sign with wonderful new management that are amazing and I’ve been getting seen for some really exciting projects. So we’ll just have to see what the future holds.

This isn’t out yet and things can change really quickly in this industry so I just hope I get to continue to do what I love to do, because we’re all individuals and I believe I’ve got something to offer the industry. We’ll have to see, eh? Who knows?