Taunton brothers Matt and Patrick Graham living their film industry dreams

Matt and Patrick Graham, who lived in Hatch Beauchamp with their family until flying the nest, have gone on to make names for themselves in showbusiness.

While you won’t find them on in front of the camera on the big screen, the pair are the brains behind some creative projects.

MILES APART: Both brothers work in the film industry

Matt, 39, lives in Los Angeles, California. He’s a screen writer and considers himself an ‘entertainer’.

While in Hollywood, he has written a number of scripts and two novels. Currently he is working on a brand new TV series about the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in 1969 called One Giant Leap. He describes the show as a ‘dark’ story about the two astronauts’ destructive personalities. It is set to come out next year to coincide with the moon landing anniversary.

He has also worked as the principal writer on the series Oliver Stone's The Untold History of The United States.

Matt said: “From the minute I saw Tarantino’s movie Reservoir Dogs at the cinema outside Taunton, I always knew with absolute and total clarity that I had to be a screenwriter in Hollywood. I knew I was a writer before that, but watching Tarantino shaped my ambition completely, and everything after that moment was defined by it. There was never any other role in life I even remotely considered for a second. It meant everything was kind of easy, because I just had one tremendous job to do - make that work.

“I arrived in Hollywood in 2002 and I’ve never looked back, because when you’re an immigrant, you can’t, there’s only the future and you have to make that happen yourself.”

 

CONCENTRATE: Patrick on the set of Ghoul

Some 8,000 miles away in India, Patrick, 35, is living in Mumbai and working as a writer and director.

Patrick thanks his older brother for inspiring his passion of films which has now led him to create a Netflix Original series called Ghoul.

He said: “Thanks to my film-obsessed brother with whom I watched many, many, great films as a child, from a very early age, possibly around 10, I was certain I wanted to become a film director.

“I’ve always been totally in love with cinema and completely obsessed with it, there has never been any doubt in my mind it was my calling in life - there was never anything else that I even considered doing other than being a filmmaker.

“The Bollywood film industry is extremely prolific but also quite closed off to foreign filmmakers, so I thought it would be an interesting industry to explore when I wasn’t getting anywhere living in London.

“Recently my first Netflix Original Series came online, it is called Ghoul and can be watched on Netflix in any country. This is the biggest job of my career and absolutely the most exciting. I am extremely happy with how it turned out and I think it has worked out well.”

The dedicated and hard-working brothers have come a long way since their Taunton days, but still return home to see their families and to soak in the quiet country life.

 

DREAMER: Matt's advice is to 'follow your dreams' - at all cost

Matt said: “I miss the landscape of Somerset which is captivating even after seeing so much of the world, walking on the Quantocks or the Blackdown Hills.

“My favourite spot is the walk at Castle Neroche, and I love going to pubs like I did when I was at school. Visiting family is my main reason for coming back to the UK, which is a strange experience for me now.”

Patrick said: “I try to get back home to Somerset as often as possible. I always miss the quiet and tranquility and the wide open spaces, also a cool breeze or a bracing wind, greenery, and being with family.

“Mumbai is a chaotic, deafening, place, so the quiet of village life is a welcome break when I go home.”

On the list of their inspirations the brother share a few key names, both looked up to directors such as Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. But for Matt, there’s no one greater than Quentin Tarantino.

Young people at school in Taunton might think a career like the Graham brothers is too far fetched for them, but both Matt and Patrick believe it’s possible with an obsession-like passion pushing you forward.

Patrick said: “If you’re not born into it, the film industry is an extremely hard industry to break into, being a writer or a director and being successful with it is an extremely long and arduous road to take - to make it in this industry it takes dedication and sacrifice which I don’t think many would be willing to put up with without a fair amount of obsession in what they are doing.

“It goes beyond passion, it is about moulding your entire life around that one ambition. Anything less than that and it probably won’t work out.

“First thing to do is - get obsessed, devour films, devour books on cinema, read around the subject, start making films at home, read screenplays and set your sights on getting into a good film school or getting onto a film set as an assistant.”

Matt said: “Keep Dreaming, dreams are supposed to be followed. The only crime when you have a dream is to ignore it, and spend the rest of your life regretting what might have happened had you had the courage to do something about it. Everything in life is possible.

“That sounds trite, but when you’re working in this business, you have to believe it or you’d just give up - which is the one thing you can never do.

“If I’d have been told at age 17 when I was doing my A Levels I would get what I wanted - that I would get to be a screenwriter in Hollywood, but it would come at the cost of a normal life, and entail lots of anxiety and heartbreak, I would have told you in a second it would be worth it. I still think so.”

If you’re looking for recommendations from the fanatic film fans, your first step, in the run up to Halloween, will be to watch Ghoul.

Patrick added: “Ghoul was originally meant to be a film which was to be co-produced with an Indian company, Phantom Films, and Blumhouse. Blumhouse is extremely prolific and makes some of the best genre content around so it was great they selected an idea I pitched to them to make as their first horror collaboration.

“Netflix came on board and asked for the film to be converted into a mini-series. It is a high-concept horror/thriller about a covert detention centre in a dystopian future India, where a new recruit is forced to interrogate one of the country’s most feared terrorists. As events unfold it becomes clear that there is more to this terrorist than meets the eye - and he is much more terrifying.”

Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting projects on the horizon from the talented pair.