Robert Aramayo Has Tourette’s In True Drama

To date, Robert Aramayo is an actor probably best known for his work in the fantasy genre space — as The Rings Of Power‘s Elrond and as Game Of Thrones‘ youthful Ned Stark. But in upcoming biopic I Swear, director Kirk Jones’ first feature in almost a decade, Juilliard graduate Aramayo is making a major pivot to play Tourette’s Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, a man who came of age with the neurological condition in the unforgiving 80s before going on to MBE recognition for his services to raising awareness about it. Check out the trailer for the movie — which, it should go without saying, contains very mighty language — below;

On the list of things we didn’t think would be heartwarming to hear today, “Spunk for milk!” surely ranks pretty highly — but that it does gives you a pretty good indicator of the tone Jones is going for with his first movie since My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Here we see a youthful John growing up in Galashiels with his mother (Shirley Henderson) and father (Steven Cree), struggling to control his tics as he finds himself ostracised both at home and at school. Fast-forward 13 years and we rejoin John as he meets Maxine Peak’s kindly Dottie and Peter Mullan’s even kindlier Tommy Trotter, both of whom look to have an instrumental role to play in Davidson’s learning to live with his condition as he tries to overcome scrapes with the law and locals to find his own voice. The trailer alone is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, and Aramayo — who stayed with the real John Davidson in Galashiels for months while preparing for I Swear — looks to be on tremendous form in what’s evidently an incredibly demanding role.

And we don’t just have a trailer for the movie, either — here’s the up-to-date poster for Jones’ film;

We can look forward to finding out whether I Swear is fucking great — or if it’s destined to (F-)bomb — when the movie hits cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 10 October. Until then, “Spunk for milk!”