Jack O'Connell Calls 'Ink' His Most Mature Role as Netflix Sets December 11 Release

Netflix will release Danny Boyle's "Ink" in select US theaters on December 11, with Jack O'Connell starring as Sun editor Larry Lamb in what the actor calls his most mature role to date.

O'Connell, 36, received the Spotlight Actor Award at the Middleburg Film Festival in Virginia for the performance. Speaking over coffee at the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, he traced the role back to fan letters he sent Boyle years before they worked together.

"I used to write to Danny a lot. I wrote all the directors that I admire," the Derbyshire-born actor said. "Not cap in hand, trying to get anything out of them, just letters of appreciation, lovely stuff that's affected me and inspired me. 'I hope we get to do it someday.' And, in Danny's case, we did."

What is 'Ink' about?

The film adapts James Graham's 2017 play of the same name, with Graham writing the screenplay. It follows Lamb after Rupert Murdoch recruits him in 1969 to take over The Sun tabloid, then remakes the British press.

O'Connell frames the story as an argument about capitalism. "We see this man just excavate his morals, and his soul, and his decisions, and this newspaper," he said. "To me, it's a comment on capitalism. The beginning of hyper capitalism, post-war England, and individual opportunity versus looking after everyone else and your responsibility within society. That was all just getting ripped up."

The actor found a political contradiction at the center of Lamb. "He began as a socialist, voted Labour, celebrated socialist politicians. He left Fleet Street having been knighted by Margaret Thatcher," O'Connell said. "Colluded with Rupert Murdoch in tearing up the unions and workers' rights. Sold his soul."

How Boyle discovered O'Connell

"Ink" is technically O'Connell's second project with Boyle. The two first met to discuss the antagonist Jimmy Crystal, a role O'Connell played in 2024's "28 Years Later" and January's "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple," directed by Nia DaCosta. The meeting came just before he shot "Sinners."

Boyle had long known of O'Connell through the E4 teen drama "Skins," which ran from 2007 to 2013 and gave Boyle his "Slumdog Millionaire" star, Dev Patel. "I think his daughter put him onto 'Skins' in the first place," O'Connell said.

O'Connell played fan favorite Cook in the show's second generation and credits it as a formative crash course. Notable alumni include Patel, Emmy-winning writer Jack Thorne and Tony-nominated playwright Lucy Kirkwood.

Before "Skins," O'Connell trained at the Television Workshop, a free program in Nottingham that led to his breakout in "This Is England." Such free programs are now scarce, and O'Connell sees fewer paths for working-class actors. "I wouldn't know what advice I would give nowadays, which is a shocking indictment," he said.

Graham, he noted, is a fellow outsider and "a great spokesman for under-representation in the industry at home because eight percent of the entire industry are from our background."

What does this change for O'Connell?

After "Sinners" and the "28 Years Later" films, O'Connell says he has arrived at a long-wanted security as a leading man. "Thank fuck for Danny Boyle," he said. "I would argue that his films have perhaps meant the most to us as a collective growing up."

"If this is a new era, yeah, brilliant, bring it on," he added. "A lot of my heroes, a lot of their work that I really celebrate, were around my age, so maybe that is inspiring and gives me cause to kick on."

"Ink" debuts on Netflix's streaming service on January 8, 2027.