You don’t expect a conversation about The Real Housewives to come up when sitting down with Sam Riley — and that’s exactly what makes his turn in ISLANDS feel so unexpectedly alive.
Directed by Jan-Ole Gerster, ISLANDS is a sun-drenched psychological thriller set at a luxury island resort, where escape is an illusion and routine becomes a kind of trap. Riley plays Tom, a tennis coach whose carefully contained life begins to unravel when a family arrives — Anne, played by Stacy Martin, and her volatile husband Dave, portrayed by Jack Farthing. When Dave disappears, suspicion quietly shifts, and the island’s stillness becomes charged with unease.
When Riley first read the script, he admits he didn’t quite know what kind of film he was holding — which was exactly the point. “I had no idea what I was reading,” he says. “But I loved the character immediately. Then when this added aspect came in, I was gripped.” He read it in one sitting, a reaction that quickly turned into panic at the idea that someone else might land the role.
Tom’s inner turbulence came easily to Riley. Tennis did not.
“The biggest headache for me was the fact that I’d never really played tennis before,” he laughs. While the emotional weight of the role felt familiar territory, the physical demands were another story entirely. Riley trained daily for months, determined to reach a point where the mechanics disappeared and the character could take over. “I just worked as hard as I could to get that bit right,” he says, admitting the anxiety never fully went away.
Rather than studying professional players, Riley focused on the people around him. He watched local tennis coaches closely — how they walked, talked, dressed, sat, and interacted. He borrowed details from each, even stealing a cap to complete the look. The result is a performance that feels absorbed rather than performed, grounded in observation rather than imitation.
That looseness extended to the film’s emotional language as well. Riley notes that many scenes — particularly opposite Stacy Martin — were stripped of dialogue. “We were allowed to take dialogue out of the scenes,” he says. “That was just a gift.” What remains are looks, silences, and unspoken tension, giving the film much of its hypnotic pull.
Then there are the camels.
One of ISLANDS’ most memorable sequences involved a camel that, for most of the shoot, had no interest in hitting its mark. Time was running out, the light was fading, and the animal stubbornly refused to cooperate — until the final take. “The camel walked right up to me,” Riley recalls, still amused. It nudged him gently, wandered off in exactly the right direction, and saved the scene. “It felt like the film gods had allowed this magical moment,” he says — a small victory that set the tone for the shoot.
Off camera, Riley proves far less brooding than his screen persona might suggest. Despite his reputation as a serious actor, he openly admits a fondness for reality television, rattling off The Valley, Salt Lake City, and internet-fueled fascination with the Beckham family. For him, reality TV offers relief from scripted worlds. “Sometimes TV with acting feels like a busman’s holiday,” he says. Reality shows, by contrast, fascinate him precisely because of how exposed people choose to be.
That vulnerability, he admits, terrifies him personally. He recalls the panic he felt before making an improvised film, worried he would have nothing to hide behind. “It felt like I’d signed up for a reality TV show,” he says. Still, he learned to trust the process — to listen, let go, and remember that only the best moments survive the edit.
That balance between control and surrender defines Riley’s performance in ISLANDS. As Tom, he holds the center of the film with quiet authority, allowing tension, humor, and uncertainty to coexist. It’s a performance shaped as much by discipline — tennis drills, physical repetition — as by instinct, and one that grounds the film even as its mystery deepens.
And yes, somewhere between camels, tennis lessons, and Real Housewives references, Riley reminds you that even the most serious actors contain multitudes.
ISLANDS opens in theaters January 30. It will captivate you.
