Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor known for breakthrough in Our Friends in the North, Olivier winner for A View from the Bridge, and memorable film villains.
On the island
Eight records
It's such a great tune, it's so cool. I just heard this when I was a kid and just thought, who is this guy? Who is this band? What is this music?" (verbatim from transcript, but note the quote is from the guest's words; the transcript has: "It's such a great tune, it's so cool. I just heard this when I was a kid and just thought, who is this guy? Who is this band? What is this music?")
he kind of starts giggling and loses it… it's that giggle I just find really infectious, and I wanted to take it with me to the island because it just makes me happy every time I hear it.
HeldenFavourite
obviously I speak German so it has an extra resonance for me.
there was a fascinating synergy between reggae and punk at that time… the sense that punks and guys that liked reggae could be on the same side.
You've Got the Love (Armand Van Helden's Bootleg Mix)
The Source featuring Candi Staton
it's a tune that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
just one that gets me leaping around the house, and there's something about that little bell in there that just, yeah, does it for me.
this is a tune that I love to listen to and dance to. I think it's extraordinary. Again, it's another cover.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:02What is that desire to transform yourself about, do you think?
There's something about the inhabiting of somebody else's persona of getting into their soul, wearing their shoes, you know, just being somebody else. I just weirdly find it fascinating. I suppose it's probably because growing up I didn't really have a sort of traditional family structure around me, siblings and all of that. So I realized I use characters maybe to just… work out how to behave, you know, who to be.
Presenter asks
5:17You met Arthur Miller when you were in Death of a Salesman. What did you take from what he said?
Yeah, we were doing the play and the director at the time said did we want to go and meet him over in Salzburg?… we basically helped them out with their lectures… and in one small room we'd drag Arthur Miller away and do the play with him and he would sit and read it with us and listen to us read it with him and it was unbelievable. I absorbed his ease with us. There was no panic. He wasn't fretting about his play. He just was enjoying the fact that we were all in this creative endeavour together.
Presenter asks
6:39How did it feel as a British actor playing the role of a Brooklyn Docker on Broadway?
I was terrified initially because I thought… we're taking an American play not only to the States, but to New York. And a lot of the lines in the play about No Strand Avenue, which is a road there, or Times Square, even, they were literally just a stone's throw from where we were performing. So I knew that we would have an audience full of people who knew exactly what we were talking about. But I have to say, there's an incredibly kind aspect to the New York theatre community. They're very inclusive. They all come and see your show. They'll invite you out for dinner and the audiences are really non judgmental. You know, the amazing people that came backstage, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, Sigourney Weaver, I mean everybody who was there at the time would come and see the show, and they were incredibly kind.
The keepsakes
The book
a Magnum street photography book (unspecified title)
Magnum (various)
I just want images from back home that weren't sun sea sand and coconut palms.
Presenter asks
10:01Your dad was Italian. Do you know much about that side of the family history?
No, not really. I mean he he left when I was a baby, so I didn't really have an awful lot to do with him. I'm not sure where he is now, and uh The thing perhaps that we have in common is that neither of us seem to have needed each other particularly, which is sad on one hand, but on the other what it managed to do was uh make me incredibly independent. I think having no authoritarian figure or figure that you had to feel you had to please or look up to meant I had to make it up myself.
Presenter asks
17:56Punk was all about DIY. How did you go from being a fan to wanting to get up on stage and start a band?
I think it was Sounds, had a full page given over to three chords. drawn onto the page, and underneath it said, Here's three chords, now go out and form a band. And I took it literally. So the guys in my dorm, we all got together and I said, you go and buy a guitar, you go and buy a snare drum and a hi-hat, you go and get yourself a bass. And we just basically got the instruments. And at school, I was in charge of the electronics, the amp and the speakers. So I could find a little room, set up the amp and speakers, we could plug in and make a noise.
Presenter asks
27:47How did you approach being a dad, given that you had no role model of your own on that front?
It was and has been a revelation. I had no blueprint of how to behave. I had no inkling of how I would behave. I suppose what it's taught me more than anything is patience, because I have especially when I play football, I have a a tendency to kind of The red mist can descend very quickly. You know, I can go down that path very quickly. And I think I've learned over the years that that doesn't have any value. And you basically, with boys, You've just got to give them love because they're almost fully formed when they come out of the womb. I think you think you're changing them, you think you're doing things to them by teaching them whatever it is you're teaching them, but actually I think that they have their spirit in them already. So all you really need to do is just carry them through from being very, very young to adulthood.
“I use characters maybe to just work out how to behave, you know, who to be.”
“I absorbed his ease with us. There was no panic. He wasn't fretting about his play. He just was enjoying the fact that we were all in this creative endeavour together.”
“The thing perhaps that we have in common is that neither of us seem to have needed each other particularly, which is sad on one hand, but on the other what it managed to do was make me incredibly independent.”
“I love that family element. What I also love, ironically, is the fact that you say goodbye. And you have to say goodbye, so you get to have another family somewhere down the line.”