by Dov Kornits & Chris Parry
Pete Postlethwaite has made a habit of making career choices that others regard as 'bad moves' since his Oscar nominated performance in In The Name Of The Father in 1994, yet somehow the bad moves keep paying off. So when Pete signed on to take the lead in Among Giants, a role that demanded frolicking naked with Rachel Griffiths and hanging hundreds of feet in the air under high voltage electrical pylons, some wondered if the man had lost his marbles. Has he?
What made you decide to take on your first romantic lead role at your tender age?
PP: I didn't recognise the script as a romance at first. In fact my partner pointed it out about two or three weeks later when she'd read the script. She rang me up and said, 'I know why you're doing this.' I said why. She said it's a romantic lead. So I hadn't really spotted that. I thought it was just a great script and an intriguing story and I hadn't really figured on that. But that's the angle people are taking now.
Not your usual cup of tea, did you ever wonder "why me?"
PP: No, it was just great to work with the people on the film. Sam Miller, who directed it, I had worked with before as an actor. This was his first feature and it was nice being on that kind of trip and not knowing exactly what was going to happen. Of course Rachel helped as well. In fact, I think it was when Rachel got on board, she said 'we must get Pete to play this part'. I think it was.
So was your character someone you constructed for the role, or was there a bit of you lurking in the background?
PP: There's a great parallel in my case because I come from that background exactly. Had I not gone into theatre and eventually films, I'm sure if I had stayed in my hometown of Warrington up in Lancashire, I'm sure I could have quite easily been Ray. Married very early and disenchanted, and the wife says this is not working and lets part for a while. I could quite easily have seen myself being that person. I live in Shropshire, way up in the hills between Birmingham and Wales, near the border.
Is that a case of finding somewhere you liked and plonking yourself there, or have you dragged yourself out of the public eye intentionally?
PP: It's deliberate. We actually moved here eleven years ago, out of London. We're kind of part of the community now. It's a small village, a small hamlet, there are like thirteen houses, it's very tiny. It's funny when I'm in the States, people say 'You live in New York or in Los Angeles?' And I say, 'no I live in Shropshire', 'where is that?' But if they saw what it is they'd understand. It's a beautiful county in England.
How does an actor go from Shakespeare to hanging around upside down under an electrical pylon in a cow paddock in Sheffield?
PP: My career has been incredibly varied. I've done so many different exciting things. I don't know how that happens. I've never had a career plan, do you know what I mean? I just looked at what was available and what I was being asked to do, and made the decision there and then. It's just happenstance.
Does your stage background come in handy or is it something you have to stifle in film?
PP: Film is a different technique to a certain extent, but the essence is the same. We're still trying to convince you how good a liar we are. We're still telling you lies and hoping you'll believe us.
Did you require stunt doubles for the climbing scenes in Among Giants?
PP: No, we did it all ourselves. There was a double for James on the first climb but we found that he was so good that the double wasn't used in the shot. There was a double for Rachel on the plummet down, when she bungy jumps from the pylon. But the rest we did ourselves. We had to really. With that first shot, where you see James and myself up there, we actually shot that on a mock-up pylon. Then we saw the dailies, I said I didn't believe we were up there. I said that if we don't sell that shot we don't sell the rest of the high stuff in the film. Eventually we got permission to do it, to actually climb to the top and shoot that opening sequence, and in fact, the very end sequence where he goes away and the shot pulls back of Ray underneath the pylon. That was all shot by helicopter.
Okay, it has to be asked, what the heck is with the ear-ring?
PP: Yeah, I brought that with me. Kind of that gypsy thing. Cowboy, gypsy, slightly rebellious but not really. You know what I mean? One of those token things.
Have you ever been climbing before this film?
PP: I climbed once before, when I was student and I hated it. I got really scared. But then again, when you read a script like Among Giants, you don't really think of the physical things you're going to have to do. You don't really think about it, in the same way you don't think about the nude scenes in it. That was part of the patchwork of the film and you thought that's ok, we'll do that when that happens. But the actual climbing, not just for the cast but the crew as well was extraordinary. They had to lug their equipment up there too. I don't mind the climbing now.
You've varied your parts so much in a short time..
PP: If the script was good, then you go, that's the next thing to do. They all have their different criteria for why you choose them. I mean, having done something as heavy as In The Name of the Father, I s'pose subconsciously you're looking for something lighter so you would go do Dragonheart or something like that. I think, well you don't have to actually beat your emotional brains out to chase imaginary dragons, and that would be quite a nice thing to do. And then a script like The Usual Suspects would arrive and you'd read it and think this is fantastic, I don't understand it, but it's fantastic. When I first read it I just thought it was fantastic writing but "what the hell is going on?" When I met Bryan Singer we talked about the film and he said 'Well Pete, what do you want to play? They're all Kaiser Soze.'
The Oscar nomination must have helped your career options...
PP: It was a surprise. When we were shooting the film there was such a buzz about In The Name of the Father. I hadn't been nominated for the Golden Globe either, and that's normally a gauge. It does change your life. What it does is gives you extraordinary choices. So you get sent scripts like The Usual Suspects, Romeo & Juliet, Brassed Off. And also international scripts. Just recently I was in Canada doing a film, after that down in Atlanta, Georgia playing a deep Southerner, and have just been asked to do a two-hander with James Garner set in the Badlands in the States. There's an understanding now from directors and producers, that actually actors can do all sorts of things and you don't necessarily need to typecast, you don't need to pigeonhole. It's very exciting because I suppose when your background is theatre where you're asked to play many parts, all in one season. Maybe in one week, when I was the Shakespeare Company, you'd do four plays and four different parts, not necessarily Shakespeare. But it's nice doing it now on the international stage. It's like the whole world has become a big rep company.
You did the role Michael Caine's had much acclaim for in the stage version of Little Voice, why not the film version as well?
PP: Time was a factor, plus there was a kind reticence on my part. Recreating stuff is not really what I like to do, though it was with Mark Herman and would have been nice. I'm glad that Michael Caine was bloody good in the part. I'm not sure about the whole movie. Basically, when it's a film people don't realise that Jane is actually doing those voices and singing those songs. In movies people automatically think it's dubbed, whereas on the stage it was patently obvious that's what she was doing.
Is contemporary theatre in England dying a slow death?
PP: We did a tour of Macbeth last year that is really exciting. Theatre in England is a commercial wreck at the minute and that's not good because that's where you went and learnt and made your mistakes and everything. Now that's not there. But maybe the upside of that is the people who were writing and directing in theatre are now doing it for film, and that area's fantastic at the moment in the UK.
You did some political ads in the UK during Thatcher's last election, what was that all about? Political aspirations or just had something to say?
PP: Well you've got to stick your head up now and again. And Brassed Off and In The Name of the Father in fact were political. I do feel politically committed. I don't belong as a member to any party, but I do believe we had to do something drastic to remove that dreadful lady.
So you're not going to run for office?
PP: No, I'm an actor. That's what I am. After thirty years you've got to believe it. I've never known anything else. I've never signed on to the dole in all that time which is very strange. I've been very fortunate. I've done The Bill, Coronation Street, Casualty and all the shows. I just did a TV version of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Ustinov and I do the Walrus and The Carpenter together. I just did Animal Farm as well. It's a live action and animation film, like Babe. In fact, Jim Henson's lot have put this together with animatronics, real animals and people. It's fantastic.
Any chance of directing?
PP: We're working exactly on that at the minute. We did that stage version of Macbeth and now we've turned it into a screenplay and getting a team together to put it into action. I'm playing Macbeth and directing. A terribly big headed fascist way of going about things. And I'm hoping Rachel is going to be in it.
Are you two buddies?
PP: Very much so. It was stupendous working with her. Exciting, honest, dangerous. When you get that honest with each other it can get dangerous. But there was so much mutual trust and respect and all those lovely things that we should be able to take for granted but can't, but she's one of the best. We think very similarly. Some years ago she turned up at a Casino opening naked with a crown of thorns. I don't think I'd do that, I don't have quite the body that Rachel has got.
There's a few websites around that are devoted to your career and life, do you find that a little odd?
PP: It's extraordinary. I've never looked at them myself, can't even turn the video, have to get the kids to do it. I'm absolutely hopeless. They seem to know more about me than I know. It's a bit creepy because they even know where you live. But I guess that's the price you pay for doing what you love.
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link directly to this feature at http://efilmcritic.com/feature.php?feature=51
originally posted: 05/29/99 01:58:26
last updated: 06/05/99 18:17:52
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