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Q: Have you ever felt like the
character that you play? What is your relationship with your mother? Do
you wear the clothes she gives you?
A: Are you my shrink? Do I wear the clothes my mother gives me? No.
No. My poor mother would no longer dare do that. I was not quite as
gracious as Mark Darcy about wearing what my mother tried to make me wear.
It tended to stop really, when I was quite young.
Q: Do you have any examples of embarrassing garments
like your character has to wear?
A: Not really, no. Just the
standard ghastly Christmas sweater. You know. They didn't usually come
from my Mum. My mum wasn't bad at observing requests. It was usually aunts
and grandparents. You look back on those things with affection now. But at
the same time you really wonder. The last thing I would attempt to do is
to buy clothes for a child I didn't know well. You're doomed I think to
get it wrong. I probably would go to certain lengths to please her... now.
If she really wanted me to wear a reindeer sweater for the Christmas
occasion I probably would. I have to wear what she asks me to wear.
Q: Here is another film coming out called 'Animal
Husbandry' (aka 'Someone Like You') which has a bad portrayal of men. Do
you think that men are as lost as women these days, when it comes to
relationships?
A: I think that they're all hopeless cases. I think the whole thing is
about getting it wrong, and misjudging everything and screwing up. Comedy
essentially is about that. Almost every comedy you see is about people
making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgment possible.
Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically
very real.
Q: Is it difficult for a man today to know what's
expected of him from a woman? Because women seem to want a career but they
also want the perfect gentlemen and all that sort of thing. Is it hard to
know what they're after exactly?
A: I think that some men are probably quite confused about it. I think the
goal posts have shifted a little bit over the last few decades. Feminism
came along and there seemed to be some sort of requirement to re-invent
ourselves. The new man concept arrived. We're tired of men being bullies
and rapists, warmongers and insensitive beasts. And now we want them to be
nice and gentle fathers, and considerate and treat women as equals. And
put an apron on...
But still fix the car and the roof...
A: But then women got disgusted by that, and most women can't bear it. So
now women suddenly decide that they hate men like that. And only want men
in gladiator costumes. And so I think that there are probably a few men
who are a little bit confused. I thought we weren't supposed to... And so
suddenly men's movements grew up. It was all about Robert Bligh. The new
man doesn't work so now I've got to try to discover my inner wild man. Men
are horribly mocked for being in confusion. Horribly mocked. They are
mocked for being sensitive... So I think there is a certain amount of
confusion. It hasn't bothered me too much personally. I've just tended to
find that I'll operate on a case-by-case basis. You know, I'll be who I
am.
Q: I read somewhere or someone told me that you're
expecting a baby quite soon.
A: That's true. He's not due for a month... or in about three weeks. I
should be there, in fact. Yes. I've got a beeper. And I'm ready to go.
Q: Is this your first?
A: It's not my first. No. I have a child.
Q: Do you live in London?
A: Yes.
Q: What's the best and worst thing about living here?
A: I don't know what is the best and worst thing. I find London is
international. That's something I like about it. There is no - it escapes
- any sort of provinciality. I think it is endlessly varied. There is a
street near me, which is a very small street. It dates back to about
seventeen fifty. And in this very small street I can remember it exactly.
It starts, there is an Italian restaurant, a button shop, a hat shop, an
antique tool shop, a taxidermist, a puppet theatre...
Q: Where is this?
A: This is in Islington... a pub, an Italian deli. I think that London is
very much like that. I find there's humour in the air and people are
interesting. And I think that it's a place which is constantly surprising.
The worst thing about it? I think it can be smug and aggressive. I do
notice that when I've been away and I come back to London. People look at
you. People are ready to pick arguments. You go to the local market; my
wife is Italian, she'll go to a fruit stall and say "Can I try one of
those cherries?" And she'll be told: "If you want it, you buy it." And
that's the attitude you get in the market. It's not always there. But I
can't imagine someone saying that in Rome.
Q: You work most of the time in
England. Is it a choice?
A: It's a sort of a mixture of both. Hollywood hasn't aggressively pursued
me. Neither have I aggressively pursued Hollywood. So it's a mixture of
both. I think England has served me very well. I like living in London for
the reasons I gave. I have absolutely no intentions of cutting those ties.
There is absolutely no reason to do so. Certainly not so that I can have
a swimming pool and a palm tree.
Q: But you did live in Italy for a while, didn't you?
A: I've spent time and I still do spend time in Italy. Rome, mostly. I
speak a little bit of Italian now. We also spend time in Umbria. My wife
is from Rome. Her parents are from...one is from Sienna and one is from
Florence.
Q: What does your wife do? Is she an actress?
A: She has produced documentaries.
Q: Would you like to work on that side of things, as
well? Real life rather than acting?
A: It would interest me. Yes, it would. Absolutely. I think it's
fascinating. Most actors will tell you they have some sort of dream of
doing something other than what they're doing. I don't know why it
produces this dissatisfaction. Perhaps they feel that they are not being
treated as substantial enough, or something. I am no exception. I'd love
to try my hand at something else.
Q: Do you share any African memories with Helen
Fielding (writer of Bridget Jones) because she's been there so many times
and you grew up there.
A: I didn't you know. The thing is, I left when I was four. But...I've
long claimed to remember it. My mother who thought it was rather
implausible, put me to the test at one time. And it did turn out that the
things I thought I remember were actual.
Q: What were they?
A: Well, I remember a small boy who lived next door, a Nigerian boy, with
whom I remember having fluent conversations. He spoke a different language
and I spoke English. And probably neither of us really spoke very much in
either of those because we were only three. But I remember talking to him.
But she remembers him. I remember his name. His name was Godfrey. And I
remember seeing his family around. I remember watching my father driving
to work. I remember a bird flying in through the window. I remember the
cat that shat in the house. There was all sort of things...
That's not a particular African memory...
A: No. But the atmosphere that goes along with those memories is very
African. And when I meet Nigerian people, when I hear the language spoken,
when I hear the music, I actually do feel some sort of natural empathy.
They say kids who are not five yet, can't remember anything. But the kids
who spend their early years in a foreign country, they always remember.
Q: I was wondering: did you ever go back?
A: No. I'd like to. It is something that always seemed like an important
thing. And now I'm suddenly forty. And I haven't done it. And I can't
quite believe it.
Q: Where was it?
A: This was in
northern Nigeria.
Q: What was your father doing there?
A: He was teaching.
Q: And your grandparents were missionaries?
A: Yes. They were. People have the idea of missionaries as going out with
the Bible and hitting natives with it. It's not really what they were
doing. They were all doing something rather different. My grandmother was
a minister as well, which was not that common in the nineteen-thirties.
She couldn't possibly have been a Catholic.
A: Neither could they have been Anglican. One of my grandfathers,
actually, having gone out there as a minister, decided he would better
serve the people as a doctor. So at a very late age - at the age of
thirty-eight in fact - he changed course and decided to become a doctor.
He started medical training and went to America with a ready (made)
family, and studied medicine. And then returned to India, I suppose seven
or eight years later, as a doctor.
Q: How do they regard your profession?
A: They're dead. So they're perfectly at peace with it now.
Q: What about your parents?
A: They were a little bit alarmed about it, I think, when I first made an
announcement that this is what I was...
Q: Isn't it a bit too light-hearted a profession...?
A: No. It wasn't that. I don't think that they had that perception of it.
They just were worried that it was a precarious profession.
Q: Did you ever have to struggle?
A: No. I haven't had to struggle very much. I haven't paid my dues. I
think I have been lucky. I think I wondered if it was going to cost me
something, at some point. I don't want to sound smug but I am reasonably
satisfied with how it's gone. I think it's fine.
Q: Does your child watch your movies, and when you come
on TV?
A: Generally, no. We decided not to do that. As time goes on.. .it is not
a harsh judgment we make. When he was very young I didn't want it to be
confusing. To see me in strange situations, and to have to explain the
difference between reality and fiction. It's not everybody that sees his
or her father on a screen, or on the television. And I wanted him to feel
relatively normal.
Q: Is there anything that you want him to see?
A: No. There's nothing I'm burning for him to see, at all. He has seen things
now. He's been on an aeroplane when they have shown something. You can't
control that situation.
That must be freaky for him.
A: It is a bit
freaky. I wasn't there at the time. He was about three and stood up and
shouted, 'That's my daddy'.
Q: How old is he now?
A: He's ten.
Q:
What do you do when you're not working?
A: I kind of
reserve the right to have that not as anybody else's business. In general,
I just enjoy myself. I spend the time with people who are more
consistently in my life than perhaps the people I work with. Some of them
are people I have worked with. Italy is an enormous asset in my life now.
I feel it's just a privilege for me to have actually met someone who is
from a country that is so fantastic. And so a lot of it is the exploration
of that country, trying to learn its language, eating its food; which is
probably one of my primary pursuits.
Q: Now you're famous, what's the weirdest thing a fan
has ever done to catch your attention?
A: There's quite a few. You get sent strange things.
Q: What...underwear?
A: Yes. That too.
Q: What do you do with it?
Yes. What do you do with it?
Q: Do you have to do something with it?
A: I don't think so. But I've been sent shoes. I think that is even
stranger than underwear. I have been sent socks and ties. And a carving of
a bird. Pictures of me. A lot. Pictures people have drawn and painted. Do
you keep any of these? Because it is almost like voodoo! Someone who is
really, really into you has painted a picture and then you throw it.
Scary.
A: It can make you a bit uncomfortable. I think you can sense the spirit
in which it is done. Some times its scary and sometimes you just feel it's
quite sweet. If it's a child, it's not scary. It's the sort of thing a
child might do. It's usually all right if it's not recurrent. It's when
it's recurrent I think it gets a little bit alarming. There is a line not
to cross. And I think if you reply to someone, or if someone starts to
become fixated then it's worrying. If someone approaches you in the
street, or off back-stage from the theatre and says things and wants to
make conversation for a second, that's entirely feasible. But if you walk
away and they start to come with you, that's crossing the line. Because
then you've moved into a different space.
Q: But does that happen? Do you get groupies in the theatre, like a rock band
thing?
A: Yes. In a manner of speaking. Yes, I do.
Q: Are they different?
A: They're different from rock groupies. Yes.
Q: Do they look better?
A: Well, I don't know. I don't know what rock groupies look like. I can
say to this day, that I've actually never had a sexual proposition. And I
think rock groupies generally have the reputation of being fairly direct.
They don't beat around the bush!
A: I mean from a fan! It would be sad if I said that I've never had a
sexual proposition in my entire life.
Q: Have you ever expressed your admiration to somebody,
as a fan? Someone who didn't know you?
A: Yes. I have done. Yes. I did. I went up to Rod Steiger the other day.
Not the other day, I mean a few months ago. I saw him at the Venice film
festival. I have been a huge fan for a long time. And I came over all coy
and shall I, shan't I? And then I felt, I had to. Steiger was one of the
first actors to really capture my imagination. And I just felt that
impulse to say something to him.
Q: What female stars would you like to work or think
you'd have great chemistry with?
A: I'm not getting caught out on that one. That's private.
Q: What's your new project?
A: It's with Frances O'Connor and Reese Witherspoon - who I have always
felt I would have that chemistry with... It's inevitable! It's The
Importance of Being Earnest. It's a film of the Oscar Wilde play. It's
with Rupert Everett and Judi Dench, as well. |