Lucas Jones on Play, Delusion, and the Tender Work of Staying Creative

When Lucas Jones answers a question, he always does it with a pause. It never feels strange though, it’s less a type of hesitation and more like he’s flipping through a Rolodex of possible truths. If you ask how he’s feeling “right now”, not just today, but in life, he starts with, “Grateful.” There’ll be a pause, then a laugh. And then… “That’s the headline feeling. But also… a little tired. You work so hard to get to a point where people notice you, and then you have to work just as hard to keep it going. It’s great, really great, but there’s this little fear in the background: am I about to burn out?”

Photography by Chad Moore

Jones, who first made his mark on the world through poetry and acting, is disarmingly honest about the unglamorous side of creative life. “I published a book back in 2023, which was amazing. But today, I’ve been on the phone to employer’s insurance companies. That’s not something I ever thought I’d be doing as an artist. I love the work itself. But the admin…not so much.”

The work, for him, has always been interconnected with play. It’s a word he returns to often. “The only thing I’ve been committed to since childhood is maintaining a state of play. If I don’t get to play enough, I get… unwell, in my head. And when you invite people into a space to play, even people who don’t get to do it much in their adult lives…their eyes light up. It’s beautiful to watch. But then they go back to the structured, sensible world.”

The instinct traces back to his childhood, which he describes as “really beautiful” but “scary” in ways that didn’t entirely make sense to him at the time. “I was a very sensitive kid. School and socialising were overwhelming. But at home, I was loved, really loved. My parents supported every creative whim. I remember being the narrator in the Year 6 school play, and my dad telling me I was the next Samuel L. Jackson. They let me be delusional. And the thing about delusion is, if you commit to it long enough, it turns into strategy.”

Photography by Chad Moore

This foundation propelled him through the long early grind of breaking into the acting world. “Travelling for hours for auditions that lasted four minutes, then getting straight back on the train. Over and over. I think the only reason I could do that was because I had my mum’s voice in my head saying, ‘It’s okay, darling. You’ll be fine.’”

Acting will always be at the heart of his practice, even as he’s branched into filmmaking and poetry. “[I don’t think] being an actor is a job, it’s a type of person. It’s like a bee. It doesn’t understand the whole ecosystem, it just knows it’s going to collect pollen and make honey. That’s what acting feels like to me. I’d be doing it whether anyone was watching or not.”

School was suffocating, and it was partly because there was no room for the kind of play that sustained him at home. By Year 9, he had perfected the art of being cheeky, not necessarily disruptive… just unwilling to go along with things that didn’t make sense. “I remember being in maths and asking why we were doing Pythagoras. The teacher didn’t answer. That’s when I knew: I’d better figure out my own curriculum.”

That self-developed curriculum was patchworked together over time. It was years of narrating school plays, learning lines on train rides, and shooting videos with friends. His peers prepared for university, and Lucas dedicated himself to filling up notebooks and camera rolls. The acting wasn’t a pastime; it was, as he puts it, “a way of being alive.”

Photography by Chad Moore

The source of his creation is constant [a secret place inside of himself], but the manifestations of his creativity now flow through a variety of threads [and mediums]. With film, he makes it clear that he writes for himself. A private audience of one. “Would I cry watching this? That’s the test.” Online, it can be a little different. His hooks have to be sharper, and his thoughts condensed. Over time, he says, you develop the skill of thinking in algorithms without letting them become all consuming. “I don’t want the business side to kill the play.” It’s important the joy is never stifled.

If you ask Lucas Jones how he wants to be remembered, he will skip over all the talk of award shows or high positions on acclaimed lists. Instead he will say “I think about my fiancée. She’s the deepest love I’ve known. I think about making things that make people feel something. And I think about playing, and inviting people to play too.”

Outside the room our call is taking place in, the light is fading. He circles back to the bee; the one that gathers pollen without thinking about the hive. He’s asked for a final through line; one thing he needs readers to remember if they immediately forget everything else. He refers me to the final lines of Poem, Poem by Simon Armitage:

“Here’s how they rated him when they looked back: sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.”