With Mint, she also defies expectations in quietly spectacular fashion. A coming-of-age love story set within an organised crime family in Scotland; its story somewhere between Romeo and Juliet and The Sopranos. The tone is unlike anything seen on British television in recent years, with surreal sequences, and fresh ideas everywhere.
“I’ve always loved gangster stories, like Scorsese films or The French Connection,” says Regan, who started out making music videos as a teenager.
“But I always wondered what was going on with the home lives of those people. What was day-to-day life like for their kids?
“And I wished I could see more of what was going on with the women. I don’t really want to see all the men sat around talking about this big gang thing they’re gonna do. I’m intrigued by the women’s view.”
Mint fixes focus on Shannon (Emma Laird), young, romantic and the daughter of Dylan (Sam Riley), the most feared gangster in her part of Scotland. Alongside her mum Cat (Laura Fraser), another romantic dreamer but with a steely side, and matriarch of the clan, Shannon’s indomitable gran Ollie (Lindsay Duncan), Shannon enjoys the fruits of gangster life and happily plays with the power it gives her, while looking away from the fray.
“It all started with Ollie,” reveals Regan. “I bloody love grandmas. I grew up a lot with my nan, I love bingo halls.
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“But I almost saw them as like the family of a famous footballer. The spotlight’s on you because of the person who’s head of your family. So you’re looked at in quite an odd way. They could be a celebrity’s kids. And they’re very sheltered. You assume they’re so exposed to things, but at the same time, Shannon’s kind of locked up in that house and not allowed out to socialise with people outside of her family.”
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But then Shannon sees Arran – who she doesn’t recognise as the sensitive son of a rival crime lord. And her world turns upside down. He is played by first time actor Ben Coyle-Larner, better known as Mercury Prize-nominated hip-hop artist Loyle Carner, and Regan’s depiction of their love-at-first-sight mindflip builds on the magical social realism she unveiled in Scrapper.
“With Arran, I was used to seeing those kinds of characters as real hard men, only allowed a tiny bit of vulnerability,” adds Regan. “I wanted it to be the other way around. I wanted Shannon to be the one who was brave. As soon as I met Ben, you can feel it through his music, through him as a person, he has such accessible vulnerability. And he’s so willing to offer you it.”
Regan wants to bring working class sensibilities and characters to a wider range of storytelling.
“The way the world responds keeps working-class British cinema in this bubble, where it’s like working-class artists aren’t allowed to make anything outside expectations of what a ‘working-class film’ should look like,” she says.
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“We don’t always have to make these gritty, sad, male films. Don’t get me wrong, they are a great part of cinema and I really love them. But lots of my friends are incredible artists – why can’t they make a Marvel film?
“I want my working-class mates to make Barbie or James Bond films. And I want it to have elements of that working-class background but be heightened. I want working-class cinema to be horror films and genre films, to evolve that space and make it more accessible to the world, rather than for arty cinema-going people wanting to watch sad, traumatic things.”
Before Regan returns to the edit suite, and to plot her dog Eddie’s new diet, she considers her mission as a filmmaker.
“I get sad that I meet these incredible kids who would 100% be a much better director than me, or better actors than all the actors we’ve got, but they’re never going to be introduced to that world.
“I went to the BFI Film Academy, which was amazing, where I got this free education. But I was still privileged in that I had access to the internet, I had a computer where I could find out about that scheme. I know there’s no easy solution. Because it takes people going into those areas and it’s a long game of letting those families know this is an accessible career.
“Until I had the money to pay my rent, my family was still, like, you’re never gonna be able to survive. This is silly. There’s kids out there that could be better than Scorsese. So how do we get to those kids?”
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