George Turner on Starring in New LGBTQ Series ‘Peckham Mix’

Peckham Mix, a lighthearted queer comedy series starring British actor and fashion model George Turner, is now available to stream on Dekkoo.

Following Tuner’s character, Josh, who is struggling to find new direction in life after being dumped by his boyfriend, he moves into a new flat on Weston Street in Peckham, with colorful new roommates, Rex (Kane Surry) and Connor (Janak Nirmal). As the pair mysteriously leave the house each night, Josh’s curiosity into their excursions lead him to potentially deadly consequences.

Created and directed by Marco De Luca, he says Peckham Mix is a tale of new beginnings that explores loss, life’s inescapable changes, and the bias many of us carry in our rush to judgements. He came up with the series idea after noticing a group of unlikely friends chatting in the street while on a Sunday walk in his Peckham neighborhood.

“They looked and behaved so differently from one another,” he recalls. “It gave me the idea for a bromance between three very different characters who wouldn’t normally associate with one another if it weren’t for some unusual circumstances.”

Turner, who grew up in a small town near Brighton, England and is best known for his stage work, says he was drawn to the Peckham Mix because he related to his character and the show’s message. He took some time to talk more about it with OFM.

George, how excited are you that Peckham Mix is now streaming on Dekkoo?

I’m absolutely thrilled! I’m so excited. I think Dekkoo is a fantastic platform, and there’s a lot of great stuff on there. It’s perfect for the LGBTQ community to delve into some juicy drama. It’s a great platform for that, so I think it’s right at home there.

What makes this series worth checking out?

There are some real qualities in the series that we can all connect with. It’s very relatable in terms of friendship, and in terms of the overarching quality of being an individual like Josh. We’ve all had moments in our lives where the rug has been pulled out from underneath us and we’re free falling. We come into these junctures and checkpoints in our lives where we can’t prepare for what happens, and we have to kind of roll with the punches and embrace change.

Josh goes through that at such an extreme level with the breakup of his relationship, and he’s kind of picking up these fragmented pieces of his life that he has forged. He’s such a perfectionist, and I think we all do that to a certain extent. We have a vision of the future, where we’re going to be with our partner, or the life that we’re forging for ourselves with our career, but at any moment, it can change. Anything can happen, and the pandemic has certainly made us realize how vulnerable we are and how much dependence we put in our future planning.

Life has this way of steering us off in different directions and throwing curveballs at us, and I think the show is connecting to that. It’s that idea of change. I think we can all pinpoint significant moments in our lives where change has confronted us. Big changes like breakups and bereavement, or it could be something redundant. All these moments, and I like to think that people connect on that level. Go with it, and go wherever the new tide takes you. You can’t swim against the current, and you have to let it bob you along in a different direction. Hopefully, it will slowly drift you back to land.

Can you talk more about what appealed you to this project, and did you initially go for the role of Josh?

Yes, I only went for Josh. My agent put me up for Josh because the role really did fit like a glove. I have been through similar things that Josh had gone through, so I had such a close affinity to him as a character. It was the only part that I self-taped and went up for, and I almost didn’t have to do an awful lot. I was very much myself. I don’t think I’ve ever had that before in my career.

I felt so strongly with Josh, and it was just so effortless. That really helped me connect to the emotional arc of the character. It was just me. It was very bizarre. When it came along and I read the character breakdown, I was just like, the stars have got to align here somewhere, and thank God they did.

Peckham Mix is your first big step into the big wide world of television production. What did you personally take away from this experience?

I love TV and film, and this was an amazing experience. I’m strategizing now with my agent to really pursue this. I recently did a gig at the National Theater, and I’ve done the West End circuit, so I’m trying to go against the natural grain of where I’m kind of being veered towards, which is theater. I’ve realized how much I love TV and how much I love being behind the lens. It’s just so beautifully honed in, detailed, nuanced, myopic, and focused, and I love that.

As an actor, you have full rein to really delve in, become embodied, and know that it will be received. It will get communicated and picked up on, as opposed to acting in an auditorium. Not everyone’s going to get the same performance, but the lens will always get the same focused performance from your character. That’s what I love about it, and I find it incredibly freeing. So, that’s what I hope comes out of this. I would love to venture more into TV work. Let’s hope more comes my way!

You began your career as a fashion model. Have you always had a passion for acting as well?

Oh, yes! I trained as an actor at Drama Centre London, and then went off to Moscow and trained at the Vakhtangov Theatre. I’m very much an actor through and through. The modeling work was just kind of a means to the ultimate end, which is the acting. The acting was very much paramount, and I trained for a long time around Europe. Hopefully, it’s paid off (laughs).

What do you ultimately hope audiences take away from Peckham Mix?

I think, more than anything, it’s the idea that no matter what happens to you at whatever stage in your life, trust in the process of that madness and chaos. You will grow and become a better person because of it. We genuinely become better people from trauma, heartache, disasters, and everything negative you can possibly think of. I genuinely think there’s neurogenesis that happens. Our brains are rewired when we go through stress, and we become stronger and better.

Take the LGBTQ community, for example. We are a minority, and there is a lot that we endure. We go through a lot, so I suppose it’s the show’s element of hope and friendship. It’s Rex and Connor that ultimately pull Josh out of this well that he finds himself in. Yes, it’s criminal activities and criminal affairs, but it’s that idea of freedom. That idea of letting go of something that you held on to so tightly and trusting in the process and hope.

You said, initially, you would not choose to be roommates with Rex and Connor. Why’s that?

(Laughs) Because there was just something in the text. Hannah Hooton writes so wonderfully, and she sculpted out the beginning stages of the series, where there’s kind of an uncertainty about the two of them. I think that’s because they are ultimately trying to get one over on Josh, and they are unscrupulous characters. Essentially, they are a bit morally skew, and I think they’re trying to exploit Josh. In any flatmate situation, it’s built upon trust, and I wouldn’t trust them with the way they kind of carry themselves at the beginning, just with that interview.

Josh knows that something is arising and afoot, but he warms to them, and he realizes that their intentions are good. I think that would be the same as me. I would be wary of them in the beginning because they’re in it for interior motives. They’ve got their own pursuits, and I think you’d be able to pick up on that, so I would definitely be wary. But then I’d realize that they are kind souls, and deep down, they’re very harmless. They do mean well.

What are some future goals you hope to accomplish with your career?

As I picked up on before and just echoing that, my real pursuit at the moment is TV and film. That’s where I’m really trying to conquer and delve into. I’ve done the National Theater, and that’s been a big bucket-list thing for me. I’ve got a three-based bucket list, and that’s the National Theatre, the Globe, and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company. I’m one of three, so let’s hunt the other two down over the course of my career, but TV and film is my main focus right now.

Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to mention or plug?

I would love to, but I am still waiting to hear back from a few projects. There are a few things in the pipeline, so we’ll have to wait and see. Do check out my Instagram because I will post things there if there’s any news.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Turner by following him on Instagram @georgeturneruk or visit georgeturneractor.com. Peckham Mix is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Photos courtesy of Amazon Prime, Michael Carl, and Chris Mann