Mint

Flying Lovers, Focaccia & a Gun‑Cleaning Grandma: The Wild Real Story Behind Mint

BBC’s Mint might look like a moody Scottish gangster romance on screen, but behind the cameras it’s all homemade bread, levitating lovers and one very chaotic nan. Here’s the juiciest real-world tea from the set.

CRIME FAMILY, CARB FAMILY: LOYLE CARNER’S SECRET ON‑SET SIDE HUSTLE

• Rapper Loyle Carner (credited as Ben Coyle‑Larner) didn’t just make his acting debut as Arran – he apparently became the show’s unofficial morale officer and caterer. Director Charlotte Regan says he “didn’t need anything on set” and instead was the one “giving me energy… and bringing homemade focaccia off for the crew each day.”
• Regan recalls meeting him and instantly phoning producer Theo Barrowclough: “It can’t be anyone other than Ben.” No tortured audition montages here – just one meeting and a lot of bread.
• Critics have singled out his performance as one of the show’s biggest surprises, with reviewers calling him a standout in a “stylish crime series.”

EMMA LAIRD: THE BRATTY PRINCESS REGAN WANTED

• Shannon was never meant to be your standard tragic gangster daughter. Regan wanted her “bratty and unlikable in some ways,” intentionally leaning into immature princess energy and trusting Emma Laird to find the vulnerability underneath.
• Regan has called Laird “one of the best people I’ve ever worked with,” praising how deeply she commits to Shannon’s contradictions – spoiled and sheltered, yet emotionally raw.
• Laird admitted she felt “guilty” previewing Mint at Berlinale with Sam Riley and the rest of the cast there, joking about how personal and off‑beat the show is compared with a traditional crime thriller.

THE GUN‑CLEANING NAN WHO ALMOST OWNED THE SHOW

• Lindsay Duncan’s Ollie started life as the center of Mint. Regan says Ollie was one of the first characters she wrote and initially the whole show orbited around this grandma before the story shifted toward Shannon.
• Ollie is described by Regan as “the grandma we all want; she is a sweary, shouty, gun cleaning, very stylish grandma, who goes to the karaoke and picks up different men each night – she just loves life.”
• The kicker? In real life, Duncan is “so gentle and kind,” but on set she morphed into this razor‑sharp, sarcastic matriarch with “incredible” comedic timing. Cast and crew essentially got British acting royalty doing filthily funny karaoke between scenes about gangland wars.

HOW SCRAPPER’S BUDGET TURNED INTO MINT’S FLYING LOVERS

• Regan came from ultra‑low‑budget roots with Scrapper, where visual flights of fancy were more “GIFs in my head” than actual VFX. With Mint, she finally had the money to make characters literally fly.
• Those dreamlike moments – Shannon levitating, operatic slow‑mo brawls – came from Regan wanting “visual interpretations of ideas” instead of standard grim crime realism.
• Executive producer Theo Barrowclough apparently questioned the rules of this magical realism, asking, “What are the rules to the flying?” Regan’s answer: “There are no rules. It doesn’t matter, it’s just led by their emotions.”
• The result: a gangster show where heartbreak can bend gravity, and a racecourse sword fight plays like a twisted fairytale instead of a grim brawl.

GLASGOW, GRANGEMOUTH & THE INDUSTRIAL FAIRYTALE

• Forget sleek London skylines – Mint is rooted in Scotland. It shot in and around Glasgow and Grangemouth, where looming cooling towers and flare stacks become part of the show’s identity.
• Regan has called the series a kind of love letter to Glasgow – a visually nostalgic, off‑kilter world where the local crime family’s kids walk around “like celebrities” in their town in a way that wouldn’t land the same in London.
• Reviewers have gone all‑in on the look, dubbing Mint “the most outrageously beautiful TV show since Twin Peaks,” with its hazy VHS textures, surreal daydreams and hyper‑stylised compositions.

THE SOUNDTRACK & THE NANA TEST

• The soundtrack is treated like another character: a mix of retro soul, pop and left‑field bangers that “breathe through the story,” shifting with the romance and the violence.
• The theme song, “Switch” by Biig Piig, has been singled out as perfectly capturing the show’s woozy, dangerous energy.
• Regan even measures success by the ultimate working‑class barometer: her own grandmother. She’s said one of her key breakthrough moments as a filmmaker was her nan watching her work and simply saying, “That’s nice that is, Charli.” You just know Nana Regan is watching Mint and judging Shannon’s choices harder than any critic.

Mint promised a “darkly comic, unconventional” crime family saga – but off‑screen it’s an art‑house fever dream powered by focaccia, flying lovers and a nan with a gun and a karaoke habit. Honestly, what more could you want?