The official Skins ‘series three’ press release

Skins is back on E4

E4’s home-grown drama series is coming back in January, but with just two of the original cast returning Skins 3 introduces a gang of new faces. 

“We’re very excited about series three of Skins and feel that our new cast are shining in roles, stories and characters which have been created by young people to a greater extent than ever before.” Bryan Elsley, Executive Producer.

The Class of 2009 is headed up by the beautiful and elusive EFFY (Kaya Scodelario), returning as the new queen bee. She’s joined by sweet and kooky best-friend, PANDORA (Lisa Backwell) who keeps the gang together.

The guys are led by the irrepressible and irresponsible COOK (Jack O’Connell – This is England, Eden Lake) a daring and charismatic leader of the gang. His best mates are FREDDIE (Luke Pasqualino) who’s the skateboarding, weed-smoking ‘cool’ one, and JJ aka Jonah Jeremiah Jones (Ollie Barbieri), the master illusionist. 

The twins KATIE (Megan Prescott) and EMILY (Kathryn Prescott) are pulling in different directions. One wanting to shed her twin and gain status, the other hanging on, crippled by shyness. Completing the girls is passionate, political and principled NAOMI (Lily Loveless). Finally, THOMAS (Merveille Lukeba), good and honest, he travels from the Congo to set up home for his family, and has to find his feet in a new and strange country.

Together the gang bond as they fall in and out of love and lust, fight one another, compete against each another, and also unite as one.

Series 3 will see guest stars Harry Enfield and Morwenna Banks return as the Stonem parents, alongside new guest appearances from Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills, and actors Mackenzie Crook, Sally Phillips and Geoffrey Hughes.

The ten brand new episodes are written by a young British writing team, headed up by Executive Producer Bryan Elsley. Chris Clough is series producer, while series 3 is directed by Charles Martin and Simon Massey. Skins is made by Company Pictures and commissioned by Camilla Campbell for E4/Channel 4.

Kind thanks to Rebecca Allin.

Jamie Brittain talks about series 3

Jamie Brittain talks to Digital Spy about the up coming series.

Did you film the new series in the same kind of locations as the first two?
"Yeah, well mostly Bristol. Generally there are new locations though – it’s quite different from the first couple of series so there’s lots of new places and new things to see. We do have college in there as a base, but other than that it’s all over the place."

What can we expect from the new characters?
"They’re a really interesting bunch, actually. I think once people see them, they will warm to them quite quickly because they’re all quite interesting. Unlike the characters in the first two series they’re very much people in development. There’s no-one like Tony, who could spout clever non-sequiturs and all that stuff."

Series two was more grown-up than series one and tackled more hard-hitting themes. Will series three mark a return to that naivety of the first series?
"I think it’s more of a synthesis between what series one was and what series two was, to be honest. It’s got a very slick variety of tones, which we’re very proud of. This year it’s a lot about the simple things – growing up, working out who you are and working out where you exist in your social group. It’s a classic teen story really, but within that there’s a wide variety of stories and characters."

What would you say are the main differences from the old Skins then?
"To an extent – and this is just to an extent – the first time round the characters were archetypal. I think that was required to give the audience a way to get into the show, but now we’re much better writers and better at creating characters, so the characters this time are much more complex, real and vivid. That isn’t to do down the characters from the first time round – they’re brilliant – but this time we’re playing a slightly different game. It’s a bit more in-depth."

When we spoke earlier this year you said it was "possible" the old cast could come back for cameos. Any movement on that?
"There’s some nice references to them and stuff like that, but I don’t think they’ll come back. For one thing they’re all off doing their own things now. Dev Patel (Anwar) has Oscar buzz around him for this Slumdog Millionaire film. Mitch Hewer’s (Maxxie) doing well in Britannia High, Nick Hoult’s (Tony) off doing a play, Larissa Wilson (Jal) and April Pearson (Michelle) have just been in a film and Mike Bailey’s (Sid) just been in a drama for the BBC. If I were them I wouldn’t want to be tied down to Skins, even though it’s something to be proud of. What we hope is that when people see the new cast, they’ll think ‘this lot are as good as the last lot’ and they won’t miss the last lot."

You said the reason you ditched the previous cast was because they had a natural two-year lifespan. Would you do the same with the new cast if you went to a fifth series?
"Yeah, I think so. That’s the idea. We’re not really thinking that far into the future though, we do it series by series. It’s hard enough to do a series on its own without thinking about the future! I would love to work on Skins as long as it’s around. I think we could come up with another lot, yeah. Teenagers are so interested and varied, there’s a lot you could do. We are thinking about series four already, which will of course be with the same lot, but beyond that is unknown."

Do you think the show would ever move out of Bristol?
"We never have talked about that. It’s an idea, I suppose. If we felt that we’d kind of done everything we could with Bristol, we’d consider that. It’s a good idea."

Finally, are you nervous about the audience reaction to the new series?
"I am nervous. But I’m also fairly confident because I think this series is really good. Just the quality of the acting, writing and directing is better than ever before. We’ve shown it to a few people and everyone who’s seen the first episode has seemed to enjoy it so far."

Well, I’m one of those lucky few to have seen the first episode and can confirm that Jamie’s right – within minutes you’ve forgotten all about Tony, Chris, Maxxie et al. The new characters are all introduced well – the clear standout being Cook (Jack O’Connell), who’s our new Chris and Tony rolled into one. Here’s a few hints of what else you can expect from the first episode:

• Harry Enfield (Effy’s dad, Mr Stonem) having a very distressing accident
• Cook revealing his rather interesting tattoo to the entire college
• Ardal O’Hanlan’s first appearance as the gang’s careless Irish form tutor
• Naomi’s embarrassing surname being revealed
• Katie attempting to befriend Effy
• Cook, Freddie and JJ attempting to befriend Effy in an entirely different sense

Source

More Pictures Of New Skins Characters!

From left to right: Katie, Emily, JJ, Effy, Pandora

From left to right: Effy, Effy, Effy, Freddie, Cook

Cook, Emily, Naomi

Images courtesy of www.e4.com

More Character Teaser Trailers

More trailers where release today along with promo pics of the characters.
Katie

Emily

Behind The Scenes

Skins Series 3 Promo Pictures HQ

Full Cast

(Left to right: Thomas, JJ, Naomi, Freddie, Effy, Cook, Pandora, Emily, Katie, Karen)

(Pandora, Naomi, Freddie and Cook)

(JJ, Thomas, Katie and Karen)

No Pictures of Effy or Emily as yet.

Wanted: Music/gig reviewer!

Following on from my post about wanting fashion writers we’re also looking for someone who goes to *a lot* of gigs with unsigned (and signed) acts playing to write reviews and such.

Skins features an awful lot of music from British acts and right up until a few days before the last episode is broadcast they are adding new music to the show, so who knows – a review on this site could get their music on the show!

The job is unpaid, however you will get staff privileges like free VIP tickets to the odd Skins party (so you can hang with all the Skins cast at the VIP bar) every so often and anything else that E4 kindly give us.

If you’re *seriously* interested, drop either Hayley or me an email (hayley@skinsnation.co.uk or alex@skinsnation.co.uk) with a link to your blog/website (if you have one), a bit about yourself, and preferably an example review/article you’ve written.

WANTED: Male and female fashion writers

As so much culture has grown up around Skins and such I thought we could extend this site a bit and add some real world content to it.

Soooo I thought we could start off with some fashion stuff as lets face it, the Skins cast do look good!

We’re looking for a male and female writer to post a blog entry every so often about fashion and their latest buys, what looks good at the moment in their opinion and anything else they think is interesting. I spend so much money on clothes myself I’m considering even joining in once in a while

The job is unpaid, however you will get staff privileges like free VIP tickets to the odd Skins party (so you can hang with all the Skins cast at the VIP bar) every so often and anything else that E4 kindly give us.

If you’re *seriously* interested, drop either Hayley or me an email (hayley@skinsnation.co.uk or alex@skinsnation.co.uk) with a link to your blog/website (if you have one), a bit about yourself, and preferably a few photos of yourself and/or an example fashion article you’ve written.

E4 gives us a (belated) Christmas present

e4.com has given us all a special present:

We’re very pleased to announce that the new Skins trailer will be online at e4.com/skins (before it’s even on the telly box) on 1st January at 10pm. Keep it Skins if you want to see it first…

Skins

x

Skins Stars in Dazed Digital

(press on pics to see larger versions)

The all new cast for season 3 of Skins was featured in Dazed’s January issue and Dazed Digital have extended Q&A’s here with Kaya Scodelario, Jack O’COnnell, Luke Pasqualino and Merv Lukeba.

A few answers to your questions about series three

Before I begin please understand that I’ve been ordered to keep quiet about a lot of stuff for a bit longer so again i’m sorry for being so vague about some stuff.

1) Karen

Karen is a minor character so the only info we will get on her is on the episode she is in.

2) Thomas

From what I understand Thomas “is” still a main character however he has not been announced yet for reasons which I can’t say.

3) Theme tune

The theme tune has been remixed by Fat Segal so it’s slightly different, and for obvious reasons the opening credits have changed.

4) Broadcast date

Apparently very few people know the exact date of the broadcast (so as to prevent other channels from broadcasting their new shows at the same time as direct competition to Skins). However it’s likely to be around end of January / beginning of Febuary again.

5) Cameos by old cast

No there aren’t any cameos however there are a few old characters who are back. Though if you keep your eyes open you may some Easter eggs hehe

7) Information about the new cast

Because of my agreement to not post anything that’s hasn’t already been announced I can’t say much more. However as soon as the ad campaign begins in the next few weeks I will post as much as I can. In terms of the interviews I will post them the week of their characters episode as well as an exclusive blog post by them!

I hope this clears some stuff up for all and if you have any other questions please feel free to ask away.

Alex

Alex at the Skins Christmas Party

Sorry for the short posts earlier. At the party there was a free bar and I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours and white wine got to me…

Anyway I’ve now got interviews for everyone but the actors who play Thomas and JJ. I’ve also arranged a number of guest posts from writers, cast and crew which we’ll post the week of each new episode.

The new cast are seriously cool guys and it was weird because they all seemed to know me without introducing myself.

As for episode one. It’s fantastic – the script is very funny, the acting is brilliant, and they manage to cram everything we’ve come to expect of Skins in the first episode! Seriously, despite how you feel about them axeing the original cast, if you keep an open mind watching it you’ll really enjoy it. It was a very interesting experience being around the cast as they saw thenselves for the first time in a fully finished form. Some of them got a bit teary, but they were all emotional in their own ways, and their random cheers as they remembered something funny that was coming up or something memorable happening when they were filming was really special.

So to everyone involved in Skins, here is a genuine congratulations from us.

Oh and thanks for the free booze

Alex

Watching episode one of series three

Oh yeah

Joe Dempsie

The nicest guy on the planet. Just met him at this party here.

Unseen Skins: Wurst case scenario

Introducing Skins series three characters!!!

Effy

Enigmatic and elusive, Effy’s the queen bee – attractive to all around her, utterly in control of herself and totally independent.

Pandora

An adorable virgin, Pandora’s found a best friend in Effy and a sweet tooth for naughtiness.

Cook

Oozing charisma, Cook pulls off daring and dangerous stunts, knowing Freddie will always be there to bail him out.

Freddie

Freddie Mclair’s got bags of potential but no va va vooom.

Katie

Super smart Katie Fitch is shedding her identical twin skin, and establishing her individuality.

Emily

Emily Fitch likes being a twin, but she’s crippled by her own shyness and depends on Katie to be the dynamic one.

JJ

Master illusionist JJ’s got a huge imagination, with child-like excitement, he dreams up entertaining schemes.

Naomi

Passionate, political and principled, no one believes in anything anymore – except for Naomi Campbell that is.