The Drama Kings, article

Theatrical tantrums or male bonding – what happened when Britain’s leading men got together for our photoshoot?

What’s the collective noun for a roomful of actors? “A whinge,” says Russell Tovey.

“A babble,” offers Tim Pigott-Smith. “A resting,” says Mark Gatiss, who then immediately changes his mind. “An ambition. No, a thrust! A thrust of actors!” he eventually decides, laughing. Keeping one eye on his peers, he leans in conspiratorially. “Can you smell the testosterone?”

We’re in a photographer’s studio in north London and the actors – suited, booted, ready for their close-ups – sit around a long table, chatting, drinking coffee and cooing over Tovey’s French bulldog, Rocky. There really is no testosterone to smell. The atmosphere is relaxed and convivial, as if I’ve accidentally walked in on a poker night arranged for some of the best leading men of the British stage. It’s friendly. It’s fun. “Actors tend to be quite good at getting on with people,” says Bertie Carvel, who is tall, dark and thoughtful. “If you’re an arsehole, people don’t want to work with you. You won’t get hired.”

Wait, hang on … actors can’t be arseholes? “Well, there are a few arseholes,” he concedes, but insists that none of them is here today. New faces wander into the studio and warm greetings are dispensed. Andrew Scott – an Olivier award winner in 2005 for his performance in the Royal Court’s A Girl in a Car with a Man – bear-hugs Carvel, himself a 2012 winner (Best Actor in a Musical) for his Miss Trunchbull in Matilda. James McAvoy – three Olivier nominations and counting – arrives with his motorcycle helmet under one arm and gives out high-fives, while Rory Kinnear (two Oliviers, including Best Actor last year for his Iago) is more subdued, smiling and nodding at people in polite recognition, like a man at his wife’s office party.

A few moments later Michael Sheen walks in and mimes surprise at seeing Gatiss across the room. It transpires the two had arranged to meet for dinner tonight and then take in a show, but that neither had known the other was going to be here today. From a punter’s perspective, I say, there’s something quite nice about learning that. “Well, Mark and I have known each other for a long time,” says Sheen, explaining that, often as not, actors genuinely do end up being mates. “If you’ve spent six months doing the same theatre production night after night, and trying not to go insane, then that does bond you.”

It’s been a bumper year for juicy male roles on the British stage, and those performances will be celebrated at next weekend’s Olivier Awards. Looking at these leading men, it begs the question: why, in 2015, do we have such a glut of theatrical talent? To answer this, we first need to understand how the theatre has changed. Pigott-Smith, up for an Olivier for his lead role in King Charles III, has been working on stage for almost 50 years. “The profession is radically different today. All those old-fashioned images of the old actor laddie in a fedora with a trace of eye make-up have gone. When I started, it was much more hierarchical. Older actors were afforded a great deal more respect. But since then there’s been a democratisation that is very healthy.”

In other words, there is now less dead wood taking up space that could otherwise be filled by talented younger actors. This is in part because British theatre has been forced to become leaner, less complacent. “There’s not as much theatre around now,” says Pigott-Smith. “Which means there’s much more competition for less and less work.” This competition, in turn, raises everybody’s game. The result?

A virtuous cycle of effort and ability.

Mark Strong talks about the undercurrent of competition that exists between actors. “It’s a complicated dynamic, a really odd balance,” he says. “Because you form these very, very tight relationships with people. They’re your pals, but then you’re also competing with them for work. There are a lot of us chasing a few jobs.”

Strong – up for a 2015 Best Actor Olivier for Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge – suspects this competitive streak informs every performance he gives. “To be honest, I think I perform for my peers first and foremost. I don’t mean to belittle the audience, but it’s the other actors’ evaluation of my performance that I’m most interested in. We’re doing it for each other. We’re always trying to outdo each other, always trying to impress each other.”

I stand in the corner of the dressing room while some of them try on suits and have their hair and make-up done. Andrew Scott pulls a pair of trousers over his skinny legs and then frets about their length in the mirror. Gatiss charms the girls who are looking after the wardrobe and briefly flashes broad, hairy shoulders while changing shirts. Sheen sidles in carrying a slight paunch. He looks at the suits. “Anything that fits, I’m happy with.”

The hair and make-up people set about Sheen, McAvoy and Kinnear, who sit in a row, like three men at the barber’s. Sheen and McAvoy recently played on the same celebrity Soccer Aid football team, a team that happened to be coached by José Mourinho. It’s pretty obvious both men share a major man crush on the Chelsea manager. “I love him,” says McAvoy. “He texted me on Christmas Day,” says Sheen. Kinnear chips in: “What was he saying? ‘Stop texting me’?”

I grab McAvoy. For some reason, I can imagine him being a nightmare to play football against, niggly and ruthless. In person, he is confident and intense, especially when talking about the theatre. “I think it’s your job as a leading man to be first in, last out,” he says. “To work as hard as you possibly can. To identify the actor who is working hardest, and then work harder than them. Just to set the tone.”

McAvoy – Olivier-nominated for his role as paranoid schizophrenic the 14th Earl of Gurney in The Ruling Class – has a theory about the enduring appeal of the stage.

“The source of theatre is human sacrifice,” he says, looking me in the eye. “The first time we killed someone in front of a crowd to make the gods like us better, that’s where we got our theatre. And I think there’s still an element of that, when it’s frightening and electric, and you’re watching actors who are giving themselves in such a committed way that they are almost sweating blood. And that’s what I always try to do.”

That sounds a bit extreme, I say. But then, he flashes, that’s his point. “I’d rather people went out twice a year to see a really good, dangerous piece of theatre in which they were genuinely concerned for the actor on stage, rather than just going to see loads of dead-easy bourgeois f***ing pieces of s***, the dead-easy stuff that gets put on just to sell out quickly.”

Bad theatre seems to physically upset McAvoy. “If you watch a bad film, you kind of just forget about it. It’s not such a headache. But a bad play? When I watch bad theatre, I feel like I’ve been hurt. I feel like someone has really annoyed me. Badly.”

If this strikes you as a bit much, it’s nothing if not heartfelt. And it only reflects something that everyone I speak to emphasises, which is that actors – or these actors, anyway – genuinely love doing theatre work. It sounds like a luvvie thing to say, but then they are, in the nicest possible way, a bunch of luvvies. And besides, they all have their reasons. Matthew Macfadyen, for example, talks about appearing in Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense last year. “I felt like I was doing a proper job.

I know that sounds ridiculous,” he says gently. “But I sort of felt nicely anonymous. You go in, you do your job, then go home. You’re not babied as much as you are in the TV business. You run into lots of people you’ve done jobs with in the past.” I say that makes it sound a bit like working on a building site. “It really is, yeah!” he says. “It’s lovely. I adore it.”

Nicholas Pinnock loves theatre work because of how close actors and audiences can get to one another, particularly given the present popularity of studio productions and theatre in the round. He’s currently starring in The Royale at the Bush, based on the story of early 20th-century African-American boxer Jack Johnson. “The other night there were two women on the front row crying,” he says. “Just because of the stuff we were doing on stage. It’s nice to be able to actually see those kinds of reactions. It gives you a different energy.”

Does he ever worry about sounding a bit, well … thespy? He grins. “I got to a certain stage in my life when I stopped giving a f*** about what people thought. I can talk about acting all day long. I love it. It’s my job. Sometimes we fall into that cliché. But so what?”

One man who can’t talk all day about acting is Ralph Fiennes. He is the last actor to arrive at the studio, and his minder says that he has two minutes to answer questions. Everyone else hangs around, waiting for the final group shot, while Fiennes stands apart, looking out of the window.

So, I ask, what is it like when a load of actors all get together like this?

He frowns. “I think it’s just like any group situation. You know you’re in the same business. But with a sense of recognition and common purpose,” he says in a voice that sounds a bit like the Prince of Wales. “Some of these people …” he starts, and then looks over at them. “I know Mark [Strong] a bit and I know Tim [Pigott-Smith] a little bit. But usually it’s a sense of easy camaraderie.”

I ask him: what does looking at these people make you think about the present quality of British acting? “I think if you’re in a profession, you’re in it. It’s not often you’re taking a step back to think about it. That’s your job. A job for the critics and the journalists,” he says, and gives a tight laugh.

Does he have any views on these other guys at all? “They are all actors I really admire,” he says, before being led across the studio to take centre stage in the shoot.

After that I speak to Russell Tovey, who’s been in a few Olivier award-winning plays, notably The History Boys. He is lovely, with all the offhand openness of an Essex hairdresser. So, I ask, what it’s like when a load of actors get together like this? “We like to sit around and have a bitch and a whine about things.”

Really?

“Yeah! Actors like to sit down and have a good moan. But that’s because we’re dramatic. Obviously, that’s not happening today,” he adds quickly. “We’re all happy. We’ve all got these lovely suits on. We’re all over the moon!”

He says that, at the end of the day, every actor here knows that he is very fortunate. “We’re in that rare percentage of guys who can turn down work and feel secure that something else will come along. I still s*** myself whenever I turn down a job because I’ve got so many actor mates who aren’t working at all. But I’m so lucky. I’ve bought a place. I’m paying a mortgage. I can go out and buy a pair of shoes and not worry about it.”

But it’s not really about the shoes, he continues. It’s just that he’s completely in love with his job. And I think that, deep down, the same is true of everyone else in the room. They may be a bunch of luvvies but, lucky for us, they’re bloody good ones, too.

“At the end of the day I love pretending to be someone else,” says Tovey. “I mean, in what other job can you scream and cry and then, at the end, have someone pat you on the back and say, ‘Well done’? I do it because I need it. I think we all do,” he says. “Psychoanalyse that.”

The 2015 Olivier Awards, presented by Lenny Henry, will take place at the Royal Opera House, London, on April 12 (olivierawards.com)

The Drama Kings The Times Ralph Fiennes Mark Strong russell tovey James Mcavoy Michael Sheen Mark Gatiss andrew scott jamie campbell bower rory kinnear Iwan Pheon

http://tightlocked.tumblr.com/post/115475055313/the-drama-kings-article

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29