The People Who Actually Made Attack The Block Work
You probably remember the movie for the creatures or the street slang, but the casting is what actually held the whole thing together. Joe Cornish had to find a group of kids who could act like teenagers without sounding like they were reading lines. That turned out to be harder than finding actual acting talent. The main cast came from a long audition process where they just hung out with the kids and saw who felt real. John Boyega played Moses. He was a complete unknown at the time, working at a grocery store in Croydon when he got the part. Jmonal Hustwaite was Lek, the paranoid one who wanted to run. Jmaise Highgate played Ronnie, the quiet girl who ended up being the most skilled fighter. Grace Churchman was Samantha, the older neighbor who wasn't exactly friendly at first. Alex Esmail handled Baz, the loudmouth who started most of the trouble. Leeon Jones was Dean, and Natalie Gumede played the drug dealer Mother. Chris Ormerod and Anthony Welch filled out the rest of the crew as Kalypso and Jerome. It was a mostly debutant ensemble, which is unusual for a British film with this much screen time. Here is something most people miss. The chemistry between these actors wasn't something you could direct into existence. Cornish spent weeks just having the young cast hang out together before filming started. They shot scenes out of order, rehearsed in costume, and essentially lived in the same space for a month. That is why the interactions feel natural and not staged. When you watch them argue or joke around, a lot of that was genuine comfort between people who had spent significant time together before cameras rolled.
I worked on a low-budget production around the same period trying to replicate that kind of ensemble dynamic, and it did not go well for us. We tried to force team-building exercises and trust falls, which made everyone awkward and worse at acting. What actually worked for Attack The Block was far simpler. They just let the kids be kids in the same room. No exercises, no structured activities. The trick was giving them scripts to read but letting them improvise the rhythms of how they spoke to each other. One thing nobody talks about is how John Boyega's performance shifted the entire tone of the film. Before Boyega, Moses was just another teen on paper. His physicality, the way he moved through the block, and his quiet authority changed what the character could do. The rest of the cast adjusted around him in real time, which is visible if you watch the behind-the-scenes footage. Every other actor had to meet his energy, and that raised the whole ensemble. The supporting cast members had smaller roles but each one carried specific type of tension. Alex Esmail's Baz was the comic relief until he wasn't, and that tonal shift only works if the audience trusts the character first. That trust comes from early scenes where Esmail lets Baz be genuinely funny and human rather than just a punchline. It is a subtle performance choice that prevents the character from becoming a cartoon.
If you are researching this for a project or just want to know who was in it, the full cast list is available on IMDb and the BFI website. The film is also on various streaming platforms if you want to watch how these performances interact scene by scene. You will notice things you missed on a first viewing once you know the names and backgrounds of everyone involved.
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