Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor known for playing Sergeant Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown, Lord Errol in White Mischief, and scientist Edward Forrester.
On the island
Eight records
It was really the first rock and roll record that I was made to sit down and listen to.
I think John Lennon had quite an effect on my life and everybody else's life of my age, really. And a continual reminder of his life and his death is something that I would like to have around me.
First Battalion of the Scots Guards
This is one of the most haunting tunes that I have ever heard. And made me realize, and I hope anybody else who listens to it, that the pipes are a very beautiful instrument.
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata": II. Andante con moto
It's amazing superhuman music. It always makes me feel, perhaps naively, it makes me feel proud of the miracles that human beings can perform.
Concerto in G major for two mandolins, RV 532
Bonifacio Bianchi and Alessandro Pitrelli
This is, as far as I'm concerned, good time music. If I'm listening to music in the order in which we've played them, then after listening to the Appassionata, I think one needs a bit of an up.
I think one of the events really of the decade was the Live Aid concerts that were organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. And the song Drive by The Cars evokes memories of that extraordinary day.
La bottega dei miracoli (Theme from "Good Morning Babylon")Favourite
I spent six weeks making this film called Good Morning Babylon, playing D. W. Griffith. It was probably the happiest six weeks of my life. I would swap eighteen years as an actor for the six weeks I spent with them. And I would like to have this piece of music around lest I ever forgot.
My favourite carol is Silent Night and I prefer it sung in German. And this is it, sung by the Bach Choir, conducted by Sir David Willcocks.
The keepsakes
The book
Richard Aldington
I'm a romantic, and it appeals to the romanticism in me.
The luxury
if I'm kicking my heels on this desert island, I have all the time in the world to practise, so I might leave the island a virtuoso on the guitar.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:11How good are you going to be at coping on the desert island? Are you a practical person?
Yes, I am quite practical and I like the land and I like the sea. Sea's very important to me. Tide, something about... But I am I'm not actually terribly good at coping with loneliness. Um I'm not too good at being by myself with myself.
Presenter asks
7:58What about the accent? You don't seem to have a Midlands twang, if that's the same thing.
No, I don't. Well, I was advised to do a lot of work vocally. I had the good fortune to meet wonderful two wonderful old men. who taught me what I would have learnt had I gone to drama school.
Presenter asks
10:47How long did it all take?
I spent about two years with them, really, and I worked as a plumber's mate in the meantime to make money, you know.
Presenter asks
18:50Did you sense, though, that this was the big part for you, that this was going to be the big break?
No, I had no idea, really. I was just having a lot of fun doing it. It was a quality piece of work and it was made by the company that made Brideshead. Uh so chances were that it was going to be successful, but I had no idea that it was going to be as successful as it was, nor that it would do what it did for me.
Presenter asks
21:27But you and [Meryl Streep] did not entirely get on, is that right?
Well, it wasn't that we didn't get on. It it was it was my first major role in a decent film. And I suppose I mistakenly assumed that more effort would be made to make me feel at ease and more comfortable. But it wasn't. But then with hindsight, I can appreciate now the sort of pressure under which Meryl works. She's not just an actress, she's probably the most accomplished screen actress of her generation. She's also hugely bankable. And people are therefore watching her grosses. Now that hasn't happened to me yet. Watching her grosses. I mean, people go to see a film that Meryl Streep is in because it's a Meryl Streep picture. If the number of people going to see her film starts to fall off, those are her grosses, then the people who finance films think to themselves ... so, you know, one has that continual worry. So I suppose making life easy for some young green English actor is not very high up on her list of priorities.
Presenter asks
23:31How does your wife cope with all of this, you and all these leading ladies, or you being the thinking woman's crumpet and all of that? I mean, does it get on her nerves?
No, I don't think it gets on her nerves. I think the attention that she gets if she's with me she finds sometimes intrusive.
Presenter asks
26:19You could have been a large star had you agreed to be James Bond, which you were offered, weren't you?
Well, no, I wasn't. Um I was asked if I would screen test for it, and I declined that offer. Because it's not something that I wanted to do anyway. It's just I would have found it rather limiting. You know, I because I wouldn't have been able to have just done one. I would have had to have done two or three and then I'd have to worry about, you know, hair dropping out, whether I had too many lines around my eyes, and I'm not I don't want to be concerned with that because part of the attraction of being an actor is that as you move into a different age then more and more interesting parts become available to you, you know.
Presenter asks
28:54So what is the ambition? To shake off the romantic image a bit and dig into the character part?
The ambition is that I had the good fortune to work with John Gielgud, as well as Meryl Streep on Plenty, and Gielgud was eighty-one, I think, eighty-two at the time. Still greatly in demand. Ah, well, I would like to get to eighty-one or eighty-two and be greatly in demand. That's my principal ambition.
“It doesn't make me cringe so much, as it leaves me quite cold now, when it was first coined. by a shrewd journalist, in fact. It amused me greatly and came as quite a surprise, because it's certainly not something that I'd ever thought of myself as.”
“We all have egos, and it's nice to have them stroked from time to time, but, you know, one can't really take that sort of thing too seriously.”
“I would die without music.”
“A star really is just an actor who sells tickets. That's a star. And there are now so many stars that they've had to make up other words like megastar and it's another one of those things about the business, one of the many things that one shouldn't take too seriously.”
“I'm a born worrier, and if I haven't got anything to worry about, then I worry about that. Um I think most actors tend to be paranoid and deeply insecure.”
“I don't personally hang on to the idea that I've made it. I just think I'm going through quite a good spell, and I hope it lasts.”