Gaining Control

So there was Sam Riley, waiting his turn to audition for the role of Joy Division's frontman, Ian Curtis, while another actor was inside a glassed-in office, doing his audition with director Anton Corbijn, and doing the crazy, robotic, arm-waving dance that was a Curtis trademark.
“I saw this other guy auditioning, and I saw him go past the window doing the dance while I was waiting," recalls Riley. "I was hoping they wouldn’t ask me to do that, I hadn’t mastered that yet, and so I went down to the bathroom and started doing it in the mirror.”

Then it was Riley’s turn.

“I went upstairs, did some scenes, and then Anton said, ‘Can I see you move?’ and I said ‘OK, do you want me to sing?’ ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well, can I have some music?’ They strapped an iPod to my arm and played ‘Transmission,’ and then I started doing the thing around the room while two producers and Anton are sitting there stroking their chins. And then Anton said, ‘You haven’t got your feet right, and I said, ‘Well, you can’t really see his feet on the video footage I’ve watched.’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s something like this,’ so by the end of it, me and the big friendly giant were doing this crazy dance around the room — a little room in a church in Manchester. It was really bizare.”

Riley, of course, won the role in the terrific Control -- Corbijn called him a few weeks after their audition dance duet. It was Riley's 26th birthday.