This interview makes me think a lot. . . . He says he does not know why he became an actor; or maybe he just doesn’t want to tell me. He relishes “experiencing life through the skin of a person who is better or worse than I am. I have been described as aloof, I have intimidated people because I am big or tall, so I have tempered my personality not to intimidate people.” Or not to tell them things. For instance, he does “not know” why he is unmarried, but he thinks he does want children. (He is 42.) Is he shy? He used to be, he says, but he has conquered it. He was always “the lanky one at the back”. He shot up one summer, he says; he does not think he is handsome; and he is not the eldest child. (Actors rarely are. An eldest child needs no spotlight.) He cannot see the handsomeness: “I think I am odd-looking. I have big lines on my forehead.” I squint, looking for them, but he is talking over me, sounding slightly panicked. “I shouldn’t draw attention to it, because then everyone else will see the oddness.” - - - I don’t know how happy he is, since previews are four days away and he is at least half Proctor now. When I ask, he says, “I am contented in my discontent”, and quotes Philip Seymour Hoffman, of all people: “When you do good work, you take a free breath.” And that, he says, “is what makes me happy”. Laziness is what makes him angry: “Laziness in myself. Laziness in other people. And dishonesty. All things I feel capable of myself. I have a propensity to be lazy and lie about it. Fear makes me rageful. There are words in The Crucible I actually find it quite hard to say.” I beg for an example — The Crucible is in the public domain. “No,” he says, “you’ll see it in the play.” I tell him it will make no sense in print if he will not tell me. But he won’t. So I change the subject. It works. “OK, I will give you a line.” He inflates a little and says: “Is there no good penitence but it be public?” And then: “Were I stone I would have cracked for shame this seven month.” -Alessia
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 09:12:26 +0000
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