{"id":38809,"date":"2026-08-11T15:42:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38809"},"modified":"2026-08-11T15:42:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:42:47","slug":"samuel-bottomley-callum-scott-howells-in-the-state-of-us-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38809","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Bottomley, Callum Scott Howells in &#8216;The State of Us&#8217; Film"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<em>The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>can unveil an exclusive clip from Ollie Gardner and Jake Harvey\u2019s <em>The State of Us<\/em>, ahead of its premiere in competition at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/edinburgh-international-film-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_edinburgh-international-film-festival_1\" data-tag=\"edinburgh-international-film-festival\">Edinburgh International Film Festival<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tLed by <em>California Schemin<\/em>\u2018s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/samuel-bottomley\/\" id=\"auto-tag_samuel-bottomley_1\" data-tag=\"samuel-bottomley\">Samuel Bottomley<\/a> and <em>It\u2019s a Sin <\/em>breakout star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/callum-scott-howells\/\" id=\"auto-tag_callum-scott-howells_1\" data-tag=\"callum-scott-howells\">Callum Scott Howells<\/a>, the British indie follows a boisterous tearaway called Frankie (Bottomley), who is struggling to come to terms with the inevitability of losing his best friend Taylor (Howells) to cancer. Frankie impulsively breaks Taylor out of hospice care for one final night of fun and debauchery, but what promises to be a night of hedonism quickly becomes something much more complicated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIn the clip, Bottomley\u2019s character can be seen cajoling Howells\u2019 Taylor into having a drink and letting loose at a house party. On the dance floor, Taylor feels some semblance of relief as he reconnects with his childhood best friend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe characters in <em>The State of Us <\/em>are loosely based on Harvey\u2019s childhood friendship group, in particular a friend called Jake Andrews, who died from cancer at the age of 18. Harvey and Gardner first met at university before pursuing careers in the arts \u2014\u00a0Harvey in TV, Gardner in theater \u2014 and with this movie, make their feature-length debuts. Co-starring with Bottomley and Howells are Frances Barber, Safia Oakley-Green, Seamus O\u2019Hara, and Duggal Ram.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tGardner told <em>THR <\/em>ahead of the film\u2019s premiere: \u201cI think it\u2019d be quite nice for young men to see this film and see themselves in it from a perspective of, \u2018Oh I can joke around and I know where the line is, but I also can really tap into the love that I feel for those male friendships.\u2019 This is one very small seed that we\u2019re trying to [plant] in the discourse of masculinity. We really want to dig into it because it\u2019s such an incredibly complex and complicated theme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tHarvey added that he also hopes the humor lifts audiences heading to watch the film in the Scottish capital. \u201cI think there\u2019s a version of our film which was probably a bit more arthouse, a bit more serious, and more lends itself to that contemporary British type of independent cinema. But actually, [we\u2019re] trying to do something that feels accessible,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s got its jokes and it\u2019s dark humor, [and we hope] that it could actually reach the audience that it needs to speak to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe 2026 Edinburgh <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/international\/\" id=\"auto-tag_international_1\" data-tag=\"international\">International<\/a> Film Festival runs from Aug. 14-21, and kicks off on Thursday with Louis Paxton\u2019s <em>The Incomer<\/em>. Festival director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-features\/edinburgh-film-festival-paul-ridd-obession-trainspotting-1236634451\/\">Paul Ridd told <em>THR<\/em><\/a> he thinks it\u2019s their greatest competition slate since they rebooted the event three years ago. \u201cI\u2019ve been very proud of everything we\u2019ve done in 2024 [and] 2025\u2026 But this one, I think, is really kind of surpassing expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tTake a look at Samuel Bottomley and Callum Scott Howells in a clip from <em>The State of Us <\/em>below.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The State of Us - Exclusive Clip\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DTp3LeD4Owk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hollywood Reporter can unveil an exclusive clip from Ollie Gardner and Jake Harvey\u2019s The State of Us, ahead of its premiere in competition at Edinburgh International Film Festival on Friday. Led by California Schemin\u2018s Samuel Bottomley and It\u2019s a Sin breakout star Callum Scott Howells, the British indie follows a boisterous tearaway called Frankie&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FotoJet-2026-08-10T121435.033.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}