I was always the guy who played the old man in the chekhov piece. If there was a young, attractive young man played the guy who shot himself at the end, i was always the old guy with gout. They used to call me captain velcro in drama school because i played all the small parts. So, i realised very early on that nobody would want me to be me because, in reality, i dont think men want to be me and women want to sleep with me so, i always had to be someone else. Oh, my goodness. Youve started with such a sort of powerful and profound sort of statement of who you are and the Acting Profession. Is that something that youve found. Youve had to come to terms with, or was it always an easy thing to accept . No, ifound it very liberating to become somebody else, to become kind of. To. Not to lose myself, but to explore other personalities and other characters. But what youve also said is that you were, from the beginning, never really the lead, never the sort of the glamour, more the. And the phrase would be the character actor. Yes. And i was very comfortable with that. Ive always been very comfortable with that. A lot of my acting heroes when i was younger. Like, for instance, when i was at drama school, and everyone was watching On The Waterfront and everyone wanted to be marlon brando, i wanted to be rod steiger, you know, because i knew that that was what i was going to be. Or i wanted to be karl malden. I want to be that kind of actor because the great craftsmen and the great artists and. Theres less pressure as well. And the work is more diverse. And ive never been fashionable. Nobody� s ever made me into the next big thing. So, therefore, my careerjust carries on and on and on. And whats extraordinary about you, and i talk about the busy ness because you have so many different roles, it seems, and juggling different parts at the same time, its the diversity. For example, right now, youve got two big projects coming out one, a film, a sort of biopic about the singer Amy Winehouse who died tragically young, and youre playing the role of mitch winehouse, her father. And, at the very same time, across the pond in the us, youve made a mini series for apple tv where you play the American Revolutionary politicianjohn adams. Yes. How do you get your head around such different parts at the same time . Well, it was a necessity for me. Because of my background and the fact that i was very Working Class and very. I was always being cast early on in my career as drug dealers or bank robbers or thugs in one way or the other. And i wanted to be an actor. I didnt want to be a professional caricature of a Working Class character. So, i decided very early on that i wanted to be diverse. I wanted to play many different characters because i hated the idea of anyone defining me. Because, usually, when they define me, its usually for want of a better word its some posh bloke defining what he thinks i am, and i have to wait around for him to give me a job to be what he thinks i should be. And i wanted to empower myself as an actor to be able to play all different parts. Its very interesting the way you phrased that. Youve been quite honest, saying, in your early career, you did have a sizeable chip on your shoulder. Idid, yes. About being Working Class. Idid, yes. In a trade, a profession, whatever we call acting, which, frankly, has been dominated for a long time by the middle classes. It has, yes, yes. And has that chip on the shoulder gone or is it still visible . It has. And one of the reasons it went was because of the kindness of people from a more privileged background than me. I think, when i first started acting, i tried to kind of tough it out, really. Iwas. I tried to be like a Working Class hero. So, in a way, you tried to adhere to that caricature. Yes, idid. That others wanted to impose upon you. And, quite often, people from underprivileged backgrounds, they revert back to the caricature, and defiant. Kind of in a form of embracing it, they embrace it and with a form of defiance. And i tried. But, because i had no academic points of reference, i was struggling. I didnt know. I didnt know what to do. With, for instance, exploring a play about existentialism, i didnt know what existentialism was. And then, one day, ijust realised i had tojust have the humility to ask questions, to ask people who are more educated than me to explain things. And the thing is, actors are very, very generous. Are they . 0h, lovely. And, yeah, they would sit down with me and explain things. And it was. So you had to lose your embarrassment that, for example, unlike many actors, i think youd left school at 15. I left school at 15. And you tried to learn a trade. I was a printer. Yeah, i was an apprentice. I mean, not many actors can say theyve been through that life experience. Yes. Yeah, i tried to. And then, i got into acting because i was. A friend of mine, me and a friend, we used to dance, and we were in a club, and some guy came up and asked us to be extras in a movie. And i spent a day on a film set, and then, i suddenly realised that i wanted to be an actor. It hadnt kind of occurred to me before. Did you, to a certain extent, have to defy your own back. I mean, particularly your own family. Your dad, i know, was quite a difficult man. Yes, yes. And i think, at one point, you said, when you brought a book home which you obviously wanted to read, he just picked it up and chucked it away and said, none of that, boy. Yeah, yeah. And i couldnt stay on and do a levels and things like that. So, when you said to him i dont know quite what role your mum played but when your dad learned that you actually wanted to give up being a printer and try your hand at full time acting. Well, he wasnt really involved in my life much then. By the age of 16, i started working for an east end bookmaker who ran a menswear store, called mr bennett, he was an incredible man. And while i was working for him, he knew i was studying to be an Apprentice Printer but he knew i wasnt happy. And he saw that i loved being on a film set. And he said to me, what do you want to do . And i said, i want to be an actor. And he said, well, if you get into drama school, ill pay. And i tried for years to get into drama school, couldnt get into any of them. And i finally got into one and he paid for the first year. The second year i had to win a scholarship. But he was brilliant. He was an incredible benefactor. Its almost like a dickensian story. Its a really interesting story. And what fascinates me, just thinking about one of your current projects, the Amy Winehouse film. Yes. Is that that hinges on the relationship between a parent and a daughter. I mean, you play amys dad. Amy, for those who havent seen the film and arent so aware of all of amys sort of problems, she was the most gifted singer. She was a sensation. But she also had grave addiction problems. She did, yes. And her dad, who was so keen to help her build this showbusiness career, has been criticised by many for failing to intervene substantially with his daughter and get her into rehab orforce her to change her lifestyle. Youve obviously had time to reflect on that and, given your own background and everything youve said about what you learned through sort of the hardships of your life. Yes. Do you have sympathy with this man youve just played . Yes, i have lots of sympathy. When. I knew after. A year before they made the film, i knew that they were going to approach me to play the film. And ive a friend of mine who worked with amy and mitch and had first hand experience of their relationship. And i knew that there was a prevailing narrative that mitch was to blame for amys death, basically. And i asked my friend what he thought, and he said, i always liked the man, eddie. He said, i thought he was a loving father, but he was in a very difficult situation. His daughter was the most famous woman in the world. She had unlimited resources of money. The paparazzi were hounding her. And every drug dealer in london, every drug dealer in london was trying to give her money. Was trying to give her drugs, he said. And it was a perfect storm. And mitch didnt know whether to keep her busy or to put her into rehab. And theres one song that says, my dad said i didnt have to go into rehab. And people think thats it. The family tried nine times to get her to. They tried nine interventions. I spent the evening last night with the family to celebrate, to see the film, and to celebrate her life. Did you . In a personal way, just to pay my respects to them. And she comes from a very loving family. I dont. I never bought the narrative of villains and victims. I never trusted that narrative in any way, politically, culturally, because i always think whenever somebody is telling you that theres a villain and a victim, theyre doing two things. Theyre infantilising the victim. And youve got to ask, who are you. . In this scenario, if theres a villain and a victim, you can name the villain and name the victim. Who are you . And as an actor, i knew, as a Working Class actor, there were lots of very well meaning progressive film makers, middle class film makers who would tell me about the world being villains and victims but, actually, what they werent aware of was their own narcissism, that they were the heroes of the story, not the victims. Because, as a victim, if you try to change their definition of you, if you try to step outside of their definition of you, you destroy their own narcissistic narrative. And so, and so, i. When i approached mitch to play mitch. And you talked to him quite a lot. I met up with him about three orfour times and i asked him for. He was my main source of research. I asked for photographs. I asked him to record a song for me. I asked for a playlist of his favourite music. I asked what aftershave he wore. Really . Yeah. Because, at the beginning of this interview, i talked about the way actors inhabit roles. Yes. And ijust wonder how far you go. Are you that kind of immersive method actor, as some call it . Well, there are certain plates that you keep spinning. Acting is basically spinning plates on poles and make sure that no plate falls down. And some plates, because of your own psychological make up, they spin of their own accord, and some you have to keep spinning yourself. For me, i always keep the plates spinning, but im able to talk to people about, you know, everyday life, and be polite. But when we did ray donovan, i was always shaking. I was always exploring the idea of the physicality. I would be like this all day long because when the camera rolled, then, i wanted to. Because the character has. The character has parkinsons. So, i didnt want to be thinking about it when im acting, because of the context that the characters in. It can sometimes seem very extreme, though. I mean, how far do you take it . At the end of the day, you do say, and youve said perhaps this is, again, a product of your past, your Working Class roots, that acting is a job, its a trade. It is a job. Yes. Its like many otherjobs. And, ultimately, dont you have to. Snaps fingers. Kind of switch off at the end of the day . You do. Yeah, i mean, i can switch off. But i give 100 on the day. But i can switch off. Yeah. Now, thinking about your background and some of the great roles youve played, and Award Winning roles like playing in happy go lucky, mike leighs film, where your character was socially awkward, was a loner, wasnt particularly nice. Yes. And then, i think, around the same time, maybe a couple of years separate, you played another very striking role in a film called tyrannosaur. Yes. Where you were, again, a loner, but you were actually a pretty malign character. You were nasty and abusive. How easy is it for you to find ways to play these difficult, troubled, sometimes deeply nasty people . Because i dont play them as particularly nasty people. I. Think theres just unhappy people in search of happiness and scott in happy go lucky, and the husband, the abusive husband in tyrannosaur both had similar purposes. They both wanted to be loved. Scott was basically what we would call now an incel. You know, these people exist on social media now. Social media didnt exist then. And when we were doing tyrannosaur, olivia and i were given case studies of men who were abusive to their wives. And one of the striking features of these reports was that all these men wanted to be loved. They just. And thats a more frightening aspect. When you play that, when you play someone who wants to be loved and show the vulnerability at the same time as doing evil things, thats really challenging for the audience. Yeah. You cant play ev. You cant play two dimensional evil characters, it doesnt work. You can. I mean, there are a lot of Hollywood Movies which are deeply two dimensional. Yeah. Are you saying youre now quite picky and you want to go down routes which challenge you and challenge the audience . Yes. Yeah, yeah. Because im not. I dont have the confidence to make a bad script good. Some actors do, and i cant. Im just like a musician. I play the notes that are on the page. What about the money . If hollywood comes to you with a frankly silly script in a silly movie, but theyre offering you shed loads of money . Id do it. 0h, id do it, 100 . Id do it. And then, i mean. In acting, you call it f off money. You put Money In The Bank and then you can tell everybody for scripts, i dont want to do that. Its called f off money. Is that right . Yeah. And then. So, youve taken a bit of f off money . Oh, yeah, ioo , yeah. Is one reason and correct me if im wrong but the arc of your career, it strikes me you did an awful lot of theatre in the � 90s. Idid, yes. National theatre, all sorts of theatre. Yes. Very well reviewed, a lot of it. And then, you seemed to decide to go to tv and to movies and to spend much less time in the theatre. Well, what happened was i. We had children, and ive got. My children are very close in age. So, we had four very young children. And, at the same time, i was offered ray donovan in america. So, i was commuting back and forth. We used to do ray donovan for six months every year. So, when i came back, the idea of going to do a play and not read my kids a goodnight story or something, and daddys going to go off and do a play somewhere itjust didnt seem logicalfor me, really. And also, the other thing is i never used to get great parts in the theatre. Theatre had a very. Not only theatre, but the uk had a very fixed idea of me and i had to go over and work in america, for the americans to get a more. To be more open minded about me, about what i could play. Thats very interesting. And they gave me great opportunities. That reminds me of something that the Black British actor David Harewood has said. Yes. That he found that when he went to america, opportunities, parts opened up to him that were never offered to him in the uk because uk casting directors, producers saw him in a particular way and that he was freed from that in america. Yes. Is that. Are youre saying the same sort of thing . 100 . Not about race but about class . Class, ioo . I went over to. When i went over to america, i was doing. I was doing ray donovan. And then, they asked me to play. Theyve just asked me to play john adams, for instance. And thats something that the british would never do. When i was first doing a job in. When i was first in ray donovan, my agent called me. She said, theyre doing richard iii, the bbc, and theyre going to offer you a part. Now, i played richard iii onstage, i toured and played richard iii. So, ithought, ok, i wont play richard, but ill probably play a good part. And the offer came through from the bbc and it was a thief with two lines. Stephen snorts. And im working every day with, you know, on a big hollywood show. And i thought, why do they have this very fixed idea of me . And i didnt go back and work for a little while. And david. Sorry to interrupt. Thats all right. But youre saying it really, foryou, in britain, comes back to class. Yeah. And i think class is something thats very immersed in all our psyches, even people who want to transcend it, its still something that we still see. We still see the country in those parameters, in those definitions. Youve actually opened up for me a whole area that i think is very interesting for an actor these days. And its a debate about what they call authenticity, the degree to which actors should and can embrace parts that are far from their own personal experience. Right. And it literally has led to huge arguments about whether a non trans actor should play a trans role, whether a jewish, a non jewish actor should play a jewish role. Ijust wonder, you know, given your view of acting as a craft, as something that you can work at and get better at, and whether that leads you to feel, you know what . I can play virtually anybody. Nobody should be told they cant have a role because theyre not, in essence, of the right sort of background. Well, two things. The first thing, i think, the great adage of acting is nothing human is alien to me. Its an exercise of artistic empathy. And that means to understand people different from you. I think, secondly, if you come from an underprivileged background, be it due to your sexuality, be it due to the colour of your skin, your race, your class, your religion, whatever, you have to be exceptional to have a career in this profession. If you come from a privileged background, you can be mediocre and youll get a career. So, how can somebody, how can a young kid, for instance, from streatham, who. Maybe their parents or grandparents are nigerian and they want to be an actor, how can they be exceptional if they can only play a young kid of nigerian descent from streatham . I want young black actors to have the career of Adrian Lester or David Harewood. I want young gay actors to be like andrew scott or sir ian mckellen, you know. I wantjewish actors to be like jason isaacs or like, like Henry Goodman or like anthony sher. I think theres a need to categorise people in order to tackle lack of opportunity and inequality. And representation. And rep. But the flip side of this argument is that a gay Director Writer like Russell T Davies has said that he doesnt want non gay actors playing gay roles because he wants that actor when hes cast the actor to be the best criminal or lover or whatever he can be, not to be a performative gay person if hes not actually gay. I mean, thats something that he. Yeah, but i think the best thing you can do, for instance, when russell did its a sin. I disagreed with that. I think the best thing he can do for that young cast of, the young actor playing who was gay, playing the gay part, the best thing that you can do for him is cast him in a straight role, in a romantic lead in a straight role, and say, watch how brilliant he is. Because what youre doing then is youre enabling that actor to go on and have a diverse career. And what youre doing is youre challenging the preconceived, the Subconscious Prejudice of the audience. What you dont do is say hes a gay actor, therefore, he can only play gay roles. Thats what will happen. And whats the percentage of gay people in the country . What is it, 10 , 15 . So, what . Theyre going to be eligible for 10 or 15 of the roles . You would never have had ian mckellen, you would never have had anthony sher, you would never have had these actors if you said, well, theyre gay, therefore they can only do that. A final thought for you, which is actually about Something Else youve taken upon yourself in recent years, and that is to have a very powerful political voice. Yes. Mostly thanks to social media. Yes. And youve been very open about your politics. Youve been a Labour Party Supporter for a long time. Yes. But then, in 2019, whenJeremy Corbyn was leading the labour party, you had a massive fallout with the party. You said, and im looking at a quote here, Jeremy Corbyn should be quote, disqualified from being Prime Minister because of his Prime Minister because of his attitude to the internal party debate over Anti Semitism and the way it was handled. Yes. Do you think there is a potential problem there, that audiences now see you as eddie marsan, notjust the actor, but as the sort of political activist . And its hard sometimes to separate the two when they might need to be separated. Perhaps. But. But i very rarely play heroic parts, i always play villainous parts. So, even if youve got a bad opinion of me, its quite nice to watch it they chuckle. I get that point. But equally. Even within the cast, you know, you might have views that other members of the same cast and, after all, you are a team working together, might really seriously disagree with. I mean, are you ever finding that these days . Oh, i mean. As actors become more political. I worked Withjon Voight On Ray Donovan for seven seasons, and i disagreed with him vehemently about trump and about the american elections. But also, i loved talking to him about the Acting Profession and his experience as a young actor in the � 60s and � 70s, with Dustin Hoffman and with just gene hackman growing up. Also. I think, i think on social media people are defined by their opinions. But when you work with people, people can have different opinions, but you still like them. Ive spent. Iquite like. Theres a lot of people i disagree with politically and i like them. And theres lots of people i agree with politically and i cant stand them. Stephen laughs. Thats a very good point. I think its probably a good way to end. Yeah. Eddie marsan, its been a pleasure. Thank you for being on hardtalk. Thank you very much. Hello there. We had some big weather contrasts across the uk on monday. Now, for central and eastern parts of england, it was a cloudy day with outbreaks of light and patchy rain around. It was a cold day. Temperatures just seven or eight degrees, well below average for this time of the year. And actually, these kind of temperatures are much closer to the averages youd see in february. So, if you thought it felt a bit wintry, well, you werent too far off the mark, but it was a different story further north. In scotland, we did have some brighter skies and some sunshine and we had temperatures i6 i6. 5 degrees or so in glasgow, so was actually warmer than average here. Now, the reason weve got these kind of contrast at the moment is we do have some slightly milder air coming in off the atlantic into generally Western Areas of the uk. But this trough in the jet stream across europe is dragging in cold northerly winds across a good part of central and eastern england. Really, theres not going to be a huge amount of change in that over the next few days. For many areas, particularly in the east, the weather is going to stay on the cold side. Next few hours, weve got some clouds and patches of Rain Drifting Southwards across england and wales. Nothing too heavy. It might be a few mist patches along with that. Clearing skies further north for scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England means it will be a bright, sunny and cold start to the day on tuesday. Now, through the rest of the day, theres patchy rain slowly fizzling as it works its way south eastwards. Plenty of sunshine across the northern and Western Areas of the uk. And again, its probably west scotland through the central belt into Northern Ireland and Western Fringes of england, wales, that will do the best for the temperatures. Highs probably reaching 16 or 17, but cold for eastern scotland, central and eastern parts of england once again. Now for wednesday, probably a bit more cloud coming in off the north sea, maybe bringing a few patches of rain, the winds a bit stronger as well. So that will make its impact felt across the east coast of scotland and england. Temperatures nine degrees, but with those winds, it will feel cooler than that. Again, some of the highest temperatures and some of the sunniest weather will be out west. Now, heading towards the end of the week and into the weekend, it looks like we will see something of a change in that an area of low pressure looks set to move up from the south. So, this is going to be bringing more general outbreaks of rain. So for those that have got quite chilly weather at the moment, were swapping the chilly weather for wet weather as we