CARDI B & KEHLANI MAKE VMA HISTORY WITH ’ “SAFE” FEATURING JOHN CAMPBELL-MAC AS THE ANTAGONIST, LOOK WHAT’S NEXT FOR HIM
British actor, writer and director John Campbell-Mac.
From VMA-winning “Safe” to "Faultline", British actor-filmmaker John Campbell-Mac now prepares to launch "Micro Impossibles: Mr. James" with Artificial Studios.
AI can create the world, but story has to make you care about it. With Mr. James, we can imagine on a scale that would previously have been almost impossible.”
LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- British actor, writer and director John Campbell-Mac is having a busy September.— John Campbell-Mac, Actor, Writer, Producer
Cardi B featuring Kehlani’s “Safe” has won Best Hip-Hop at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, adding a major honor to the cinematic music video in which Campbell-Mac plays the antagonist at the center of its explosive climax opposite Cardi B.
The win has generated a fresh wave of coverage for Safe, but Campbell-Mac is quick to put the spotlight where he believes it belongs.
“This is Cardi and Kehlani’s moment, and I couldn't be happier for them. Safe was an extraordinary production to be part of and you could feel the ambition behind it from the moment we stepped onto set. Huge congratulations to Cardi, Kehlani, director Arrad Rahgoshay and the entire creative team. I’m simply very proud to have played my small part.”
The VMA arrives at an unusually active moment in Campbell-Mac’s own career.
He has also just completed a Los Angeles theatrical run of Faultline, a new film he wrote, directed and stars in.
Campbell-Mac plays Johnny Green, a man who has built his life around fixing things for other people but finds himself confronting something he cannot fix when the death of his wife leads him toward a truth she may have died trying to uncover.
The Los Angeles engagement marks another step in Campbell-Mac's continuing move between acting and creating his own material.
But his next project takes him somewhere very different.
NEXT WEEK: MICRO IMPOSSIBLES: MR. JAMES
Campbell-Mac will next appear in Micro Impossibles: Mr. James, an original short-form cinematic adventure series launching next week.
The project is being developed with filmmaker and AI creative Duncan Thomsen, who heads Artificial Studios and its forthcoming streaming platform Planet Spectrum.
Mr. James follows an apparently ordinary modern Londoner who repeatedly finds himself propelled into extraordinary cinematic worlds where he is given seemingly impossible missions.
Each adventure begins in the familiar and rapidly becomes anything but.
Rather than being built around a single genre, the series uses emerging AI filmmaking technology to move James through dramatically different periods, environments and cinematic traditions while a larger mystery gradually develops around him.
For Campbell-Mac, however, the technology is a means rather than the story.
“AI is opening doors that independent filmmakers simply didn't have before, but Duncan and I have always come back to the same principle: technology can create the world, but story has to make you care about it.
“With Mr. James, we can imagine on a scale that would previously have been almost impossible for an independent production. That's incredibly exciting — but James, the characters and the storytelling still have to come first.”
Thomsen and Campbell-Mac have been developing the series as part of a wider exploration of what happens when traditional filmmaking disciplines — character, performance, structure and cinematic storytelling — collide with a rapidly evolving generation of creative technology.
Its launch will give Campbell-Mac three markedly different projects arriving almost simultaneously: a performance in a VMA-winning global music video, his own film on Los Angeles theater screens, and an experimental new episodic project looking toward a very different model of independent production.
For now, Campbell-Mac is enjoying the moment.
“It's been a slightly surreal few weeks. Faultline was playing theatrically in Los Angeles, Safe has now won a VMA, and next week we finally get to introduce people to Mr. James. They're three completely different projects, which is probably what I love most about it.”
Micro Impossibles: Mr. James launches next week.
ABOUT JOHN CAMPBELL-MAC
John Campbell-Mac is a British actor, writer, director and producer based in Los Angeles.
His recent work includes playing the antagonist in Cardi B featuring Kehlani’s “Safe,” winner of Best Hip-Hop at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, and writing, directing and starring in Faultline, which has just completed a theatrical run in Los Angeles.
His next project, Micro Impossibles: Mr. James, is an original cinematic adventure series developed with Duncan Thomsen and Artificial Studios and launches next week.
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Cardi B ft. Kehlani – SAFE | Featuring John Campbell-Mac as the Antagonist
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