Sorry, I don’t really go in for that. I mean, I don’t keep pics to sign and send out. If someone comes up and asks me to sign something I will – a theatre programme or an arm or whatever, but I don’t have a stash of glossy pics to hand out.
I do subscribe to the theory that actors should do most of their own stunts, like all the actors I know, much to the horror of all the producers, who know nobody’s really going to notice anyway if it’s cut together right. I suppose nowadays they can just CGI your head onto the stunt person. It’s great when you go into make-up and there’s this tiny 48 year old guy sitting there with a bad wig on and you say, “who’s that?” and someone says, “that’s you, for the stunt.” These people are great though, and they make you look great. On “Shanghai Knights,” which I did with Jackie Chan, the highlight for me, apart from being in Prague for months, was training with and learning tricks from Jackie’s stunt team. I got to do a lot more of that than I thought I would, and it made up for the whole rest of it for me, where I felt I was a villain in pantomime (which I suppose I was). I’ve had cuts and scrapes but nothing too serious yet. When we were doing “American Buffalo” in Dublin, I was very careful with the way I held the gun in Act 2, cos it had real blanks in it for some reason. I know a guy in Dublin who’s going around with a bit of shrapnel in his lung he got from a blank on stage. Also, when we were in Prague, a stunt man died doing a stunt on “Triple X”, which was also shooting there at the time. In “Deathproof,” Quentin Tarantino’s section of the “Grindhouse” film, he actually uses a stunt performer (Zoe Bell) as one of the main actors, and when the action kicks off, you can see it’s really her hanging onto the hood of the car. It’s really exhilarating.
– Do you ever feel you must or have you ever found you had to fight for the character’s voice? As you hear it.
Yeah, that happens all the time. It’s not usually like a fight, but I will stand up for what I think is right, and I may be wrong and may be convinced of that too. But that’s all part of the process. If it’s something where you meet up with a director before any offers have been made, and you’re miles apart on it, you might not want to go any further on it.
– Understanding that in the end, the project is under the control of the director and is being paid for by the producers – have you ever found it oppressive to work within their vision of a role, when it feels unnatural to your understanding of a character?
Happened a few times, but not too much. Doesn’t feel good, but they have their say too. I’d say the important thing is to try and get it right from the start.
– Do you find “darker” roles more interesting to play? If so, why? As an actor, it is your job at times to portray dark or cruel acts/mindsets. Some individuals within your profession let the roles in too close to shake things off easily, almost like profilers do in criminal cases – like they’re haunted by the experience. Others can switch off from the emotions with no trouble and walk away. Have you ever experienced the duality of feeling distanced and yet also disturbed by a character or scene?
The darker characters are usually more interesting to play, or the ones with different sides to them. It’s good to give that side of yourself, if you have one, an airing. This thing that actors do, of switching things on and off, switching personalities on and off, is a bit psychotic in itself really. If anything, I’m not half disturbed enough by some of the stuff I’ve said and done in roles, I barely even think about it.
Like anything, it’s a kick to get on top of something that’s been difficult or nerve wracking. A lot of people become performers despite being very shy. It can be a white knuckle sometimes, and is more interesting to look at then maybe, if someone’s all exposed and raw and vulnerable. I don’t know if a performer should be solely doing things as a form of therapy though.
I think the higher your stock, if you’re not known as someone who will go out of their way to try and be different each time out, they might try and get you to do the same kind of thing over and over. Not sure. But you always have control. I suppose if you’re more famous there’s going to be more people involved in trying to get you to do certain things. There are some kinds of parts that are easier for me, definitely, and I should take care not to overdo it there. I haven’t had typecasting problems and don’t anticipate any. If it got lame like that, I would stop acting.
I don’t see why not. I haven’t seen much of “Rome,” so can’t really comment. I could do some time hanging out on a Viking ship or whatever. Hope it won’t all be CGI though. Your point on it being intimately focused on character makes it sound a lot more interesting.
I’ve enjoyed it/am enjoying it immensely. It was never a crazily long commitment for me – 2 years followed by this last season, on a separate contract. It’s given me an opportunity to experience an American city I may never have otherwise even visited and have come to really like, and meet some of the finest people. It’s never easy or even desirable to try and work out where your career would be going if you went a different path, this came out of the blue at me and I’m glad I went with it. It’s been good professionally and personally, cos it’s one of the finest dramas of recent times. It’s not too starry, I wasn’t expecting to “get” anything more out of it than I have, but I thought I could put something in. Personally it’s good cos I get plenty of free time and can travel to see my kids more than I expected at the outset. So all good. Having said that, I do look forward to having an open slate.
Well, they already have said that. When kids are young they usually say they want to be what their parents, or one of their parents are. Most actors that I knew who had actor parents seemed to have a hard time. Or at least, I don’t think anybody is going to give you anything for free cos your Ma or Da is a well known actor, maybe once or twice, maybe it opens a couple of doors, but then you’ve got to deliver. Also knowing what a den of rogues it is too should make any parents cautious. I wouldn’t stand in the way of anything anybody wanted to do, I’d be honest and pass what I thought was the valuable stuff. I don’t remember people telling me much about the acting profession when I was younger. I probably wasn’t listening. Well, I can remember someone telling me how nobody makes it, but I think that was a guy who hadn’t made it told me that. Personally, I’ve had a great time of it.
We shot this film “Blackout,” in Spain before Christmas. A lot of the scenes were indeed set in an elevator, and if it was claustrophobic at times, that will help. Practically though, it could never have been as claustrophobic as “The Tempest,” cos there were no water encased Houdini-style chambers, etc. and you could always take a wall out to shoot through, etc. or walk out the door and take a stroll in the mountains (cos we were filming in an old hospital in the hills outside Barcelona). To say its set in an elevator is misleading though, only part of it is in an elevator.
First one that comes to mind you mean? “I’m Spiderman,” from “Mojo,” or “I was just doing some spring cleaning,” from “The Caretaker.” The ones I wanted to forget I think I’ve actually successfully erased already so can’t come up with any. I’m sure if I looked through stuff I could come up with some.
Maybe, maybe not. Don’t know. Be nice not to be in it.
I’ve fired lots of guns, but couldn’t tell you how good a shot I am cos there’s always blanks in them. Apart from air rifles at the carnival and you can’t tell from that cos they always bend the barrels a little or mess with the sights. When I first fired a gun it was a machine gun and even with blanks I took the tops off flowers 20 feet away. The most dinky gun was a ladies purse pistol in “Mojo,” and I have a scar on the palm of my left hand from slicing it with the trigger of a musket, trying to fire Clint Eastwood style in the 17th Century. I quite fancy doing something with a crossbow.
In the shed in the back garden of the house where I grew up, there are still Starship Enterprise controls drawn on the wall in chalk. We used old garden tiles for teletransportation platforms. I do like Sci-Fi and would love to do some. I think a lot of the new “Doctor Who” is pretty good. Me and my daughter were recently taken by Ardal O’Hanlon as a cat driving around space in a camper van with his girlfriend (human) and their kittens.
I can play guitar a bit. Bought one in Baltimore and have been working on it. I would like to play a musician in something. Or even someone who thinks they can play the guitar and sing - that might be better. I’m not thrilled when having to sing unaccompanied, especially when just having emerged from the bottom of a pool, like in “The Tempest,” on stage, with ears full of water. I’d like backing next time.
Well, that got destroyed so I couldn’t get that. Generally I don’t like to keep things from productions. With the exception of a very lifelike wearable giant dog-skull from “The Tempest,” which goes down well with visitors.
Any good actor shouldn’t be able to say no to a great part, and shouldn’t be expecting medals for taking on something risqué. If someone is seen as “brave” for playing a gay character, it just highlights how conservative things are (have been). They’re not being that brave, just doing what they’re supposed to be doing. A lot of people don’t want to see films like “Brokeback Mountain,” or I should say, think they don’t want to see films like “Brokeback Mountain,” but once something like that film is in the mainstream, they’ll be a bit more accepting in the future and so on. One of the good things about that film in particular, was that it blasted the stereotypes somewhat – those characters were very masculine, and ordinary, really, except that Heath Ledger reminded me so much of a younger George Bush, which messed with my head a bit. Anyone else get that? Maybe next time a film with similar content can be just seen on its own terms without the sensationalist angle, etc. I thought the film was pretty good, really well directed, acted, shot. Not the best film I’ve ever seen, too much a conventional love story. For my money, “My Own Private Idaho,” pushed it out in greater style in 1991. But it (“Brokeback”) was streets ahead of “Crash” which beat it to The Best Picture Oscar that year. People will probably always be wary of the sexuality. A lot of people find it difficult to comprehend that some people like to do things another way. I’m sure it did alright at the box office, and that means something too, in terms of what might or might not get greenlit in the future.
Think it should definitely be channeled through art. Theatre, film, and music can definitely bring about change, and have done. I’m not a soapbox kind of person, but there are loads of things I wouldn’t do. Think this has come up in another question too.
It’s hard to surprise people who talk to people on the other side of the world on cell phones or live in the web while taking it all for granted. Myself, I’m still mystified by the radio. The world definitely feels smaller now with the availability of any kind of information to anybody, anywhere, in split seconds. But there’s still mystery, and scientific discovery or explanation doesn’t negate this, it just highlights it. I never wanted to live in the Dark Ages, where you could get impaled on a spike or burned at the stake or worse just for scratching your head the wrong way or something. Maybe the Golden Age was somewhere between then and now, after the invention of the printing press, maybe about 120 years ago. When you could read “Treasure Island,” and if so inspired, find your way onto a ship and to the South Seas or the Caribbean and see an alien world. It’d be hard to find something comparable now in terms of adventure. Taking God out of the equation, and I did, some years ago, what’s happened on our planet or in our universe over the last couple of hundred million years is pretty spectacular, beautiful, and mysterious. Let’s hope we don’t destroy it though. If a sizeable meteor crashed into us that would surprise people I’d say. I’d about 2/3 of the way through a book by Cormac McCarthy called “The Road,” which is set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a man and a boy wandering through it – and that would give you food for thought.