Travesties is an intellectual romp – did your rehearsals, with Patrick Marber directing, resemble seminars?
We approached the text with Tom [Stoppard] himself and went through it paraphrasing each sentence. We had ample opportunity to ask what things meant. I’d studied Travesties at A-level. Our teacher, Rodney Mearns, had enthused about it but we were teenagers and would go: “Shurrup – this is so pretentious.” When it came round again as an adult, I thought: hang on, I remember what Rodney said. I remember about dadaism. I remember the play as being fairly impossible. This is Stoppard – I am wanting to use the work “punk” but that is not suitable – but this is his youthful moment of feeling he could do whatever he liked. The sheer dick-swinging bravura of it…
How would you describe your character to someone unacquainted with him?
I see Henry Carr as a traditional Englishman – he would probably have voted Leave. I give him the outward persona of a Brexiter but he has the heart of someone who feels the greatest moment of his life was when he was exposed to the intellectual and artistic freedom of Zürich in 1917. So you might see him in the pub, in Hampshire, sounding off, but at four in the morning he will be secretly wishing he was hanging out with bohemian types.
This is a question I never ask actors but yours is such a formidably wordy role – how did you approach the learning marathon?
You just need time. And repetition. But I do worry about the learning feat. I partly wanted to do this part to prove to myself I still could. It is much harder in your 40s than it was when I was 22.
What has returning to the stage after six years meant to you?
It is wonderful to be reminded of the joy of doing something that occupies your whole body and spirit and involves so much nervous energy. In films, they usually just shoot closeups of your face for 30 seconds at a time.
Yet you were superb as Corky, associate arms dealer, in The Night Manager. Are villains the most fun to play?
Villains are seldom as multidimensional as Corky. I’ve also played villains in Pirates of the Caribbean and Hanna, the Joe Wright thriller. They tend to be two-dimensional to give heroes a plot. Macbeth might be an exception – oh no, I’m not supposed to say that. [He goes outside the dressing room, turns round three times and asks permission to come back in.]
So how did you get the acting bug?
I desperately wanted to act after doing Oliver in a school production, aged 11, where the show-off in me and the chorister came together. I did a TV role while still at school – and the die was cast. I read English at Cambridge and did a lot of acting there. I was a pretty poor student but loved being around clever people – I felt dragged upwards. This is possibly what Travesties does for audiences too. They feel some synapses have been connected for them and although this might fade by the time they get to the tube, everyone will have had a bit of a workout. The play is intellectual vaudeville – a tumbling act.
Why didn’t you go to drama school?
I auditioned for three and didn’t get in. I was pretty cocky. Actors have to have self-belief. If you measured it clinically, you’d probably define them all as mad. If they had the correct reading of the situation, none of them would do it. I got a job working in Hamleys which was a very actorish thing to do. I became a toy demonstrator.
And yet your friends say you are self‑critical…
The desperate thing about actors is that they are trying to please others all the time. Actors are never the best judges of what they are doing on stage. All you can hear is how an audience is responding, which is why a good audience makes you feel a million dollars. I possibly don’t have a strong enough sense of interior belief. I tend to go to bed in a mood created by the audience the previous night. You have a barometer that tells you whether an audience is bored. In this play, there are some fairly consistent big old laughs yet audience reaction is mysterious. The best thing is when you are lost in character – in Travesties, there is no continuous narrative.
So what of the narrative of your own life – when I last read about you, you were single, living in the country and walking a neighbour’s lurcher?
The lurcher has died. That is the development. Otherwise, everything is the same. At the moment, I am living on Portobello Road. I find coming to the theatre in Soho amazing, especially in the mornings when the independent shops and cafes are coming to life and it is full of fresh-faced people going to meetings and other people going to bed. But I also love the countryside and trudging around in mud – with or without the lurcher – seeing the sky.
I have you down as a keen cyclist? Do you worry about London cycling?
I find it stimulating, although cycling lanes are a bit boring. They’re full of incredibly competitive cyclists – more scary than people in cars. They have a lot of endorphins going – they’re in fight or flight mode.
Do you still have people shouting “Oi, Rev” at you, after your Bafta-winning TV series?
Just when I thought Rev had gone for good, I joined the London Library [he gets up, rummages, shows me a membership card with his habitual, taken-aback expression and, above a black jumper, a white T-shirt that resembles a dog collar]. I expect to be referred to the theological section. I love the London Library’s reading room. You could go to sleep there and wake up educated.
Speaking of education, weren’t your parents teachers?
I grew up in north Oxford. My father taught biology, my mother maths, which she still teaches aged 74.
What part would you most like to play in future and might you write it yourself?
I’d have a go – I’ve started a production company so… watch this space. Meanwhile, I’ve finished Breathe, a film directed by Andy Serkis in which I play twin brothers, which was interesting because I had to talk to the memory of myself.
How do you feel about turning 50 shortly?
I’m not thrilled about it – I can’t quite believe it.
Travesties, transferring from the Chocolate Factory, runs until 29 April at the Apollo theatre, London W1. For tickets: 0330 333 4809; nimaxtheatres.com
View all comments >