“If I’d suggested anywhere which was prohibitively costly then they may have turned around and asked why, but otherwise it was my choice. “Where we set Blood was entirely up to me,” says the director. In addition to the wilds of Hilbre, he used Birkenhead Town Hall as the police station interior, Wallasey Town Hall for the exterior, Leasowe lighthouse and seafront and The Vines pub in Liverpool city centre. For me it was absolutely the opposite of the oppressiveness of the rest of the film, so it gave me those two dynamics which I wanted.”įor Nick, whose BAFTA award-winning credits include Occupation and The Awakening, the decision to return to his former home was a very well-considered one. “Actually I couldn't believe that no-one had ever shot there before. Symbolically the idea is that out there there’s no eyes, no judgement, no morality. “That is central to our story, so Hilbre features a lot. “In the story it’s a known tradition for this police family, the brothers and their father Lenny (played by Brian Cox), when the tide is out they drive suspects out to the island and give them a bit of pressure. In fact, for the purposes of Blood, Hilbre becomes the perfect isolated spot for the two lead characters – brothers played by Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham – to exact their own particular sibling brand of justice. “He doesn’t know how close he came to ending up under those sands.” “I went to prep school in Hoylake and I thought, if I had to kill my history master and bury him somewhere, that’s where I’d choose! “Somewhere in my dark psyche as a child told me that if you had to kill somebody and bury them, it wouldn’t be a bad place to do it. “I was brought up in West Kirby and I grew up looking at Hilbre every morning,” he explains. The tale of two detective brothers has no need of a specific location.īut the director had a very personal, and he jokes rather sinister, reason for choosing Hilbre Island off the Wirral peninsula as one of the key backdrops. Filming of Nick Murphy’s latest Brit thriller Blood could really have taken place anywhere in the country.