Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times (London) April 12, 2000, Wednesday
From Corrie to Coriolanus: the Linus Roache story
by Imogen Edwards-Jones
Actor Linus Roache tells Imogen Edwards-Jones about the Almeida
offer he couldn't refuse
Linus Roache is sitting in a suitably cold and cavernous room in
Shoreditch
Town Hall, preparing for some serious soul-searching. "I didn't jump
at it
easily," he says. "I didn't say 'Yeah' immediately. I had to have a
long,
hard think about it."
He's not the first successful screen actor to undertake a salutory
stint in
the impoverished world of theatre. But while most actors draw the
line around
the two-week mark, Roache has just signed up for eight months. His
soul must
be in dire need.
But all is explained when you find out that he's doing Shakespeare,
with
Ralph Fiennes, in the most ambitious project the award-winning
Almeida
Theatre Company has cooked up to date.
"I took quite a while to decide because I really feel I've done a
lot of
theatre and I didn't have a hankering to go back to it," he says. "I
don't
suffer from that thing a lot of actors talk about, that they 'need'
theatre.
I actually love film. But when this came, I thought... Jonathan
Kent...
Gainsborough studios... Ralph Fiennes. I mean," he smiles, "if
you're going
to play Bolingbroke, you want to play it opposite the best Richard
there is."
And it's not just Richard II. Taking over the dilapidated
Gainsborough
Studios in Shoreditch, where Alfred Hitchcock made many of his early
films,
including The Lodger and The Lady Vanishes, the Almeida is putting
on a Bard
double bill of Richard II and Coriolanus with the same director/star
partnership of Jonathan Kent and Ralph Fiennes that brought in the
plaudits -
and a starry audience - when they staged Hamlet at the Hackney
Empire in
1995. Richard II opens tonight, and then they will perform it in the
evenings
while rehearsing Coriolanus (which opens on June 14) during the day.
The two
plays will be repped together until early August, and there will be
a special
double-bill on Saturdays.
"It is quite surprising to see how different the plays are," says
Roache.
"Richard is a play that I've loved for many years. I've been in it
twice
before, once as Richard and once as Aumerie. Coriolanus is a play I
know
nothing about. I've never even seen it."
One is psychological, spiritual and lyrical, the other is
plot-driven; ask
why the two were put together, and Roache laughs disarmingly. "God,
I don't
know. You can find connections. They are both plays about power, how
people
deal with power, they are both political plays. But I think it's
more to do
with the fact that Ralph is perfect to play Richard, and it's a play
that
he's always wanted to do. And I think that Jonathan is in love with
Coriolanus. But it's a hell of a contrast for Ralph to play both."
And both in the same day? "The only thing that I can call on is that
I've
done it before with Ralph at the RSC. We used to do King Lear in the
evening
and Don Juan in the afternoon."
Roache and Fiennes have collaborated before. They were at Rada
together, the
RCS together, even playing brothers in the Lear directed by Nick
Hytner. "We
weren't kind of matey mates," says Roache.
"But we had a lot of mutual respect. I admired his work a lot and we
enjoyed
working together, although ironically in King Lear all we did was
say
something to each other at the beginning of the play, and go on our
separate
journeys, and have a massive fight at the end. So this is a bit more
satisfying because we get to work with each other."
Of course, both as Bolingbroke and Aufidius, Roache is at
loggerheads again
with Fiennes in both the title roles. "I know," he laughs. "It's a
very
complex relationship in Richard. You can intellectualise it, you can
understand their histories and their backgrounds, but there is
something in
the end that is very mysterious about them. I can't pretend that I
fully
understand it."
Born in Lancashire, 35-year-old Roache is the son of the longest
serving
actor in Coronation Street, William Roache (Ken Barlow) and the
actress Anna
Cropper. So it was somewhat inevitable that he'd make an early TV
debut, aged
nine, as a boy with boils in the Onedin Line. "I had bubonic plague.
I
remember walking around with my glycerin sweat on really getting
into my
role. I loved it."
Roache went on to act with his father in Coronation Street, playing
his son
on screen. "That was fantastic, we had such a ball," he laughs. "I
loved it.
I remember some adult coming up to me when we were in the studio
recording
and asking, 'Aren't you terrified that there are so many million
people going
to see this?' and I'd never thought about it. I think I came of age
in that
moment."
It was Antonia Bird's controversial film about a gay cleric, Priest,
that
gave Roache his big break. In fact so feted and applauded was he, so
the
story goes, that he couldn't cope with the pressure and skipped the
country
to spend two years in Bodhgaya, one of the most important Buddhist
pilgrimage
sites in the world. "Everyone thinks that I went to India because of
Priest,"
he explains, "but I just happened to go on retreat there. And I was
only
there for about two months. I think my hatred of fame is
misconstrued. I
don't court it, but I certainly don't go around saying I hate it."
He does, however, return to India every year. A follower of the Face
religion, pioneered by the American Andrew Cohen, who preaches
"personal
liberation through meditation", he spends time in Rishikesh in the
foothills
of the Himalayas (where the Beatles came to be with Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi).
"There's a lot of meditation, question, answer, dialogue and
investigation
with other people from all over the world," he says. "To sit and
think about
these things and put acting, schmacting and schmoozing away for a
while is
really good."
Following the success of the 1997 film The Wings of the Dove, in
which he
played the poverty-stricken journalist, Merton Densher, he has
another four
films in the can. "I was scared of film," he admits. "I didn't feel
ready to
do it. There's a lot of money riding on it. Friday morning, you have
to do a
big scene, and it has to be done by 1pm, and that's it. But now I'd
love to
work in America and be in something like The Matrix. I would, I
would," he
insists. "Not for the money. I think The Matrix is one of the best
films
ever. I want to be in The Matrix 2 and 3, I'm serious."
But while he waits for Keanu's call, there are a couple of epic
plays to
perform. "I have a feeling that it is going to go very quickly," he
says.
"But it is certainly going to be a challenge. Just to do justice to
the play
will be my focus; and to let people judge from that, and not to be
too
concerned with pleasing everyone. The biggest mistake you can make
is to
cater to the critics, or to cater to so and so, or so and so. Just
commit to
the play," he smiles. "It's the best text I've ever come across."
Almeida at the Gainsborough, 0171-359 4404
(Thanks to Antonieta, who sent this to me! Mari)