The Light in the Hall: Interview with Iwan Rheon who plays Joe

3 January 2023

Iwan, tell us a little bit about the story of The Light in The Hall and your role in it.

At the heart of the story is that a girl, Ela Roberts, who disappeared 18 years ago and my character Joe went to jail after saying that he committed the murder. At the beginning of the programme, he is released from jail and he goes back to Llanemlyn, where everything happened. But he has dis-sociative amnesia. His brain has more or less shut down so he doesn’t remember anything that happened. Cat (Alexandra Roach) is a journalist who has grown up in the area and she was friends with Ela. She tries to find out what happened and then Ela’s mother Sharon (Joanna Scanlan) wants to know the truth. She pretty much knows the truth but wants to shed some more light onto the situation so she can understand what has happened. Joe is a part of this and he wants to know what happened too.

The Light in The Hall was filmed in Wales. You were born in Wales but your career has taken you all over the world. Was it nice being back in Wales again?

Yes! It was great to be back in Wales. I spent a lot of time filming in the Llandeilo area. It was really nice to be able to speak Welsh on set. My family is from North Wales but I was born in Carmarthen. But my parents moved to Cardiff when I was five, so I grew up there. I am quite familiar with the area and I do recall little bits about Carmarthen.

You began your television acting career on iconic Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm but have worked mainly in the English language – was it nice to work in the Welsh language again? And how difficult was it to work in both languages?

Yes, it has been quite a while and I really enjoyed it. I had been looking for something in Welsh and when The Light in The Hall came along I thought the script was strong and it was something I really wanted to do. But it was quite tricky going back and fore between the two languages. There were two scripts and the way it is filmed is quite complicated. Luckily for me Joe is a very quiet character – especially in the first episode!

Iwan, you are well known for playing the terrifyingly unhinged character Ramsay Bolton in the blockbuster television series Game of Thrones. Which was most challenging – Game of Thrones or The Light in The Hall?

The thing with Game of Thrones was that you spent a lot less time on set because there were so many different characters. With The Light in The Hall, Joe’s character is so intense and in so much pain – nothing good happens to him! I had to work out in every scene what he was feeling and what had happened to him. In a way, because Game of Thrones was a fantasy, it didn’t feel so ‘real’. The Light in The Hall is quite naturalistic and it feels quite heavy to play a character like that for a long time.

Do you enjoy playing intense and troubled characters?

As an actor, doing a little bit of everything is the ideal scenario. I like to have some variety and to play interesting characters. Obviously I try to keep away from playing too many sociopaths because it’s very easy to be typecast!