Tag Archives: acting interviews

Spandau Baddie: Martin Kemp Meets Vicky Edwards

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Martin Kemp tells Vicky Edwards why his musical theatre debut is going with a bang-bang…

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Photo credit: Alastair Muir

From gangster Reggie Kray to evil control freak Steve Owen in EastEnders, Martin Kemp is extremely good at being bad. Currently on tour in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang playing the Childcatcher, arguably one of the most iconic villains of all time, Martin is drawing on his previous roles for inspiration, but admits that there’s unchartered territory to explore when it comes to the character that regularly tops the polls of movie monsters.
“The Childcatcher is an exaggerated version of everything I have ever done before, but it comes from a completely different angle,” explained Martin. “He’s a step away from reality; all the characters are really, especially in the second half when we go to Vulgaria.
“In the first half I play a character called the Junk Man, but in the second half that kind of Alice in Wonderland thing happens and the Junk Man becomes the Childcatcher. Robert Helpmann did an amazing job [in the film], but my physicality is not the same as his; I don’t have his ballet background, so instead I try to bring a bit more horror to the role.”
Judging from the booing that fills the theatre before he has even set foot on the stage, he’s clearly doing that very effectively.
“Kids are scared of the name: Childcatcher. When the Baron says “Call for the Childcatcher!” I can feel the tension in the theatre and then I hear the boos,” he laughed, adding, “But that’s part of the whole experience. If you haven’t laughed, cried and been scared then you haven’t seen a good show. You need to be taken to all those places.”
And with cheers at the curtain call almost taking the roof off the theatre, it seems that it’s a journey that audiences of all ages are delighted to undertake. A co-production between Music & Lyrics Limited and West Yorkshire Playhouse, this brand spanking new reimagining of the much-loved Sherman Brothers musical is winning critical acclaim as well as standing ovations.
“Ten years ago I saw the show in London and the main thing I remembered about it afterwards was the car,” said Martin. “But now it’s very much about the story. It amazes me, but every night I walk out of stage door and people are there saying how much they loved the whole show. From old people who saw the movie on their first date to kids meeting Chitty for the very first time, the demographic is extraordinary. Yes, it’s changed from the book, and then again from the film and again from the original stage musical, but it really works. We’re sending people home with big smiles on their faces.”
As for his fellow cast members, mention them and it is Martin with a big smile on his face. “It’s a great cast,” he enthused. “I’ve worked with Michelle [Collins] before and it’s lovely to work with her again, but they are all brilliant performers.” And so they are. Funny men Jason Manford as Caractacus Potts and Phill Jupitus as Lord Scrumptious and Baron Bomburst are joined by Martin and Michelle, as well as Andy Hockley of Phantom of the Opera fame as Grandpa Potts, and West End leading lady Amy Griffiths as Truly Scrumptious. Add to that a world class company of singers and dancers and you have a show that is dazzling, star-studded and that absolutely lives up to the ‘fantasmagorical’ praise.
But while the story of Chitty might have been knocking around for a good while, musical theatre is a new challenge for Martin.
“One reason I am here is that I have never done a musical before and I thought this might be a nice way to dip my toe in. I love trying new things and I love working with new people.”
That happy-go-lucky, have-a-go attitude wasn’t always there, however. In fact, as a child he confesses that he struggled with crippling shyness.
“I’ve been doing this a while now but at the age of eight I was incredibly shy, so my mum sent me to Anna Scher’s drama workshops,” said Martin, who knows first-hand what an advantage drama classes can be to children.
“What drama clubs give you is a small amount of this magic dust called charisma. I always say that I owe everything to Anna Scher because she formed my personality as a kid.”
Pointing out that whether you become an actor or join a band or you just use that acquired confidence to get through interviews when you’re 16, Martin is certain that drama clubs are a fantastic way of developing both character and life skills.
As for children watching live theatre, absorbing stories close up rather than on a screen, Martin loves the way they get totally involved.
“Adults watch, but kids believe and become part of the world they see unfolding; they just dive in,” he nodded.
“For Chitty we recently did what is called a ‘Relaxed Performance’ for children with disabilities and conditions like Autism. The show was adapted around the audience’s needs and it was a wonderful thing to be part of.”
A member of one of the most popular bands of all time, star of movies, TV and now a musical, Martin certainly can’t complain of always doing the same old same old.
“I have always changed it up a bit and I like never knowing what’s around the corner,” he laughed, although actually this time he does know what is coming next.
“I have just finished a year on tour with Spandau which was wonderful, but it’s this great big machine that needs five artic trucks and a 100-strong crew. When you play huge arenas the size of Wembley you know that to people at the back you’re just a speck of dust in the distance and that you’ll never get to meet those people. So in May I am doing the sort of antidote to not meeting people with a show that’s going to tour called An Audience with Martin Kemp. I’ll be travelling around England chatting about my life and career and taking questions from the audience. Yeah, it’s going to be different and fun,” he grinned.
With such a busy professional life, relaxation, he says, comes in the form of painting.“That’s my down time. Sometimes it shuts me off from the world and I lose myself completely.” Asked what he paints and the smile that stole my sixteen-year-old heart lights up his face again. “I paint rock ‘n’ roll,” he says with a chuckle.
Super-talented, funny, warm and with rock ‘n’ roll artistic flair to boot, however brilliantly nasty he is as the Childcatcher, in real life Martin Kemp is a total sweetie.
Vicky Edwards

 

Actor Interviews: Rakesh Dasgupta

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Actor Interviews- Rakesh DasguptaWhat made you become an actor?

It all started while I was in school. I never really had any friends to talk during my school days. I was experiencing domestic violence almost everyday; I could not find anyone to listen to me. I was getting bullied at school. All these experiences started giving me depression at that age and I was so helpless. But I always loved to watch movies and I liked portraying those characters I saw in the movies. Its hard to explain but when I used to portray the characters in front of the mirror I used to (kind of) become those characters from within which helped me for that short span of time to forget everything surrounding me. I found this to be a very helpful technique to stay away from my depression and the unwanted ambience. As time progressed, I just got hooked up with this acting.

Did you train and if so where?

Sounds weird but I must say my initial training started in front of the mirror. Being a commerce graduate I never had any formal acting qualification. Until 2013 when I started taking informal acting and accent removal classes in Sydney with some of the experienced actors.

Career Highlight

Instead of taking names of some of the projects that I have worked on, I would like to consider my career highlight to date being given the opportunity to go to Hollywood and perform in front of the film directors and casting directors. Also getting representation offer from one of the leading agencies in USA during my first week in Hollywood was something completely unexpected. (Well its a different thing that I could not accept the offer for having no work rights in USA)

Lowest Point

Those first days in Sydney when I did not have a place to live and was visiting Salvation Army to ask for food as I didn’t have any money with me. I don’t want to speak too much on my lowest points in life as I think people who want to pursue acting, want to become actors and have big dreams would get discouraged and scared listening to my past. So I would prefer to keep this point short.

Hardest thing about being an actor

1. Getting job – you can be an acting degree holder from the best acting university in the world and you might have the best acting talent but you might not get any acting job. If you ask me why, I don’t have that answer. It’s the way it is. 2. Uncertainty of the future – as an aspiring actor you never know where you will end up in the next 5 or 10 years time; you can end up with stardom or you can just end up with nothing. 3. No financial security – In the early stages of acting career, it does not pay you much, if at all to make both ends meet. It’s very likely that you might just end up with one meal a day as that’s all you would be able to sometime afford being an aspiring actor.

Do you make enough money from acting, if not, what else do you do?

At this stage of my career I do not make enough money from acting to pay all my bills. As such I have to do other stuff like working in supermarkets, gas stations, doing gardening work etc etc. I prefer these kind of odd jobs instead of a full time desk job because they provide flexibility to attend auditions and shoots.

Best and Worst audition

Best audition – When I had four days time to practice my lines which is quite unusual to get such a long time to prepare a script. I knew my lines and moves to perfection and was very satisfied with the way I performed in the audition room. The casting director appreciated my performance and I was so convinced about getting that role but guess what, I didn’t get the role.

Worst audition – I was driving to this audition and my car broke down in the middle of the highway. I had to get my car towed to the nearest gas station and then I got a cab and was able to reach the audition venue just on time. It was summer and I was profusely sweating. I went to the audition room and I couldn’t recall half my lines; I left the script in my car which made me look so unprofessional. I came out from the audition room dejected with no hope. Two days later my agent informed me that I got that role.

Advice for other actors

Firstly you should only pursue acting if you enjoy the actual art; If your reason to pursue acting is to become famous, you got a bad news coming – you are in the wrong business. Do not have a back up option because if you have a back up option you are basically preparing for failure. Acting is a business in which ‘YOU’ are the product that you sell, so maintain yourself (a good physique is always an asset in the acting business). When you are an aspiring actor you will get naysayers coming by default who will tell you that it cannot be done – just ignore them. Most importantly, you have to honestly believe in yourself that one day you will become a successful actor; Well, if you don’t believe in yourself, who else will.

What is the most important thing for actors to do to improve their career?

Practice Practice Practice! Practice your art, work on your art whole year, not just two days before going to an audition. Doesn’t matter if you practice lines in front of the mirror in your room, in the middle of the beach or in an acting school, but do something everyday to improve your confidence level.

Role Models

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Dwayne Johnson, Johnny Depp

 

Tuppence Middleton interview for Black Mirror

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You’re in the new series of Black Mirror and you’re in an episode called ‘White Bear’ which is shrouded in secrecy. What can you reveal about it?

It mainly focuses on a young woman who wakes and she doesn’t remember who she is, in a world that she doesn’t recognise anymore. Everyone she meets is either incredibly hostile towards her, or they just film her. My character bumps into her helps her. I’ve been living in this world and I’m very used to it, and I become her guide.

 

Your character is called Jem. What’s her story, what do you know about her?

In the story you know that she’s become hardened by this world and she knows the ins and outs of. She is very independent and initially would rather travel on her own, but she just happens to come by Victoria and is forced to take her under her wing. Her main goal is to stay alive. When we were talking about the character we almost wanted her to come across as a bit like a computer game character, like a bit of a Tank Girl – she’s very tough.

 

Presumably there’s not an awful lot of back story or detail about her. Does that make it difficult to play a role like that? Or does it give you a blank canvas which is quite fun to fill out?

Yeah I liked the fact she was quite mysterious, she doesn’t give away too much. She gives away enough about the world for Victoria to understand but she doesn’t give away too much about herself and I think she’s quite a guarded and lone figure. I think the more mysterious she is to Victoria the better.

 

Lenora Crichlow [who plays Victoria] said the shoot was pretty intense in terms of it being very long days and not quite knowing what was going to be around the next corner. Did you find that as well?

Yes I mean it was kind of tough in a great way. I don’t think I’ve ever run so much in my life. I was doing ADR [voiceover work] for it today and it was, I’d say, 90% doing breaths for running. We were very active and it’s kind of fun doing things like that because I’m not like that at all – I hate even going to the gym, so being an active action girl is quite fun for me. I mean it was tough, it was long days and we were filming mostly outside for two weeks and almost every day it would pour down with rain. We were usually quite cold and wet and running for hours but it was quite fun.

 

Presumably with the plot being what it is, it quite added to the atmosphere it being rainy and dark?

Yes it really helped. I’ve just watched a little bit of it back and there’s that really weird sky when it’s like winter and it’s raining and it’s so cold, it’s almost like a completely white-grey sky. It really looks like the end of the world has come.

 

What was it that attracted you to the part?

A million things. I am a huge fan of Charlie Brooker and I thought the last series of Black Mirror was one of the best things I’d seen on TV for ages. As soon as the audition came up I was like ‘oh god I have to get that.’ I just love Black Mirror, and Carl the director. I was just really confident he could do a good job and he seemed to have a really good vision. And like I said it’s a part totally unlike myself, apart from being tall, which I think is why I mostly get cast as these sort of parts, I’m not at all like that. I’m not this kind of action girl. It was something really different for me.

 

When you’re going up for an audition like that, something that you really want to get, does that make you a lot more nervous, and how do you deal with that?

Yeah it makes you more nervous, but then you turn that into determination. You can’t let it get the better of you. Ultimately when you’ve got something you really want, it’s more about showing how passionate you really are about it and when you get to actually meet the director and meet the producers and stuff and talk about the role and talk about the script then it’s great because you can input your ideas in the initial audition. So you get carried away with how enthusiastic you are about it as opposed to how nervous, and you come back and think ‘I have no idea how that just went’. I’m terrible at judging it, and then you get the call and it’s amazing, so I was really pleased, it’s a brilliant job.

 

In your relatively short career so far you’ve worked with some amazing names – just picking a few David Tenant, James McAvoy, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, Danny Boyle, Sean Bean. How have you managed to squeeze that all in into such a short time?

I have no idea, to be honest, because when I first started, there would often be periods where I wasn’t working for a few months. I think the gaps just gradually get smaller and the roles you do become bigger, either in the sense that you’re taking more of the lead role or it’s a small role in a more prominent thing, a kind of step up in terms of who you’re working with. The more people I work with like that the more I learn from them. Emma Thompson, I was working with her for a day or two, but you learn so much even in that short amount of time. It’s great, I mean it’s kind of strange because you think about all those names after you’ve done it but when you’re doing it, they’re just people who are also doing a job. You just have to think like that and, yes, it’s such an amazing learning opportunity and I think I’ve been lucky to work at all since I left drama school because so many people don’t. I am thankful that it’s been with some amazing talent.

 

There’s been a huge variety in your work – you’ve done everything from comedy to horror to more arthouse stuff. Is that an intentional thing to keep moving genres, to stretch yourself like that?

Yes completely. I mean I’ve been sort of lucky with the genres actually but I guess it’s more for me about finding parts that interest me and scripts that interest me. I think I always want to do something different to the thing I’ve just done and I always want to play a part different to one I’ve played before. It’s just about finding variety and I get an instinct very quickly about a script whether I like it or not. Over the four-and-a-half years I’ve been working, although it’s not long, I think you start to build up your own taste. I think it’s just constantly about keeping me on my toes and having a challenge rather than playing something which is second nature to me.

 

Who are the people working in your industry who you most admire?

That’s such a hard question. I was really lucky working with Danny Boyle because he was definitely on the list. There are definitely lots of directors I’d love to work with, I mean in a crazy world I’d love to work with Tarantino. Obviously there’s too many actors to mention that I’d want to work with but I think you really get drawn towards certain directors as well and I say there’s definitely certain directors I’d want to work with. David Fincher I think is great, David Lynch.

 

Most people when they leave drama school maybe do an apprenticeship in theatre but you’ve slightly bypassed that. Do you want to do theatre as well?

Funnily enough I’m starting to rehearse for a play on Monday. It’s just a short run – it’s on throughout March at the Jermyn Street Theatre, a Graham Greene. You spend most of the time at drama school training for theatre and then I just happened to come out and do film and TV because my first job was a film and it paved the way for the rest of my work. I absolutely can’t wait for rehearsals to start for the play. I think it is going to be a really different discipline and a different experience for me. Yes I’d definitely like to do more of it but I think you tend to get more work in one area and maybe that will change in a few years’ time when I’m a bit older. At the moment I’m happy with the way it’s going and I’m looking forward to trying my hand at a play.

 

What ambitions do you have left? What do you really want to do with your career?

I guess primarily it’s always about making work that I like, being in films from scripts that I love and not compromising on that, and just to make it into a career and not working for three years and then I stop working. I want to be working into my eighties. If I live that long!

 

Black Mirror: Whiter Bear is on Channel 4 at 10pm on Monday 18th February. Interview thanks to Channel 4.