Checking in with EDDIE MARSAN

Eddie Marsan loves to disappear into his roles.

So to play John Darwin, the British prison officer who in 2002 faked his own death to collect on a life insurance policy in the BritBox limited drama series “The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe,” Marsan grew a bushy beard, shaved his head and became completely unrecognizable compared to the characters he’s played in such films as “Atomic Blonde” and “Hancock” and for seven seasons on “Ray Donovan.”

“I never like to look the same in anything that I do,” the 54-year-old Londoner explains. “Nobody ever asked me to be me. They always ask me to be somebody else so I quite like that because it means that when I go out on the street, no one recognizes me.”

While researching the role of Darwin, who faked his death in a canoeing accident, collected a 250,000-pound settlement and fled to Panama with his wife Anne (Monica Dolan, “Vanity Fair”), Marsan became fascinated with the idea of the myth of omnipotence, where some men harbor the belief that they are all-powerful and therefore not subject to the rules that apply to everyone else. Most grow out of it but some don’t. Like, he says, Darwin.

“I think he was a fantasist ...,” Marsan says. “One of the clearest signs of that is they lie. They create a reality that’s completely theirs and theirs alone and doesn’t have to hold water with any empirical truth at all. So when I was performing and researching this and playing John Darwin, we had Boris Johnson, our prime minister, lying to the houses of Parliament. And I was looking at this and thinking this is the same mind-set, really . ... ”

“So it’s very interesting to play while all of this was going on because the world is changing and it’s not so kind of a male-ruled world now. I think a lot of men are finding it hard to make the adjustment. And I think John Darwin was one of those.”

Full name: Edward Maurice Charles Marsan

Birth date: June 9, 1968

Birthplace: Stepney, East London, England

Marital status: Married to makeup artist Janine Schneider-Marsan; they have three sons and a daughter

Other television credits include: “EastEnders,” “Grange Hill,” “Silent Witness,” “Little Dorrit,” “Law & Order: UK,” “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,” “Ray Donovan,” “Isolation Stories,” “The Pact,” “Deceit,” “Ridley Road,” “The Power” (forthcoming)

Movie credits include: “Empire State” (1987), “Gangs of New York” (2002), “21 Grams” (2003), “The Illusionist” (2006), “Mission: Impossible III” (2006), “Miami Vice” (2006), “Hancock” (2008), “Sherlock Holmes” (2009), “War Horse” (2011), “Snow White and the Huntsman” (2012), “The World’s End” (2013), “Atomic Blonde” (2017), “7 Days in Entebbe” (2018), “The Contractor” (2022)

Favorite book: “When I got married, on my honeymoon I read ‘The Master and Margarita,’ I thoroughly enjoyed that. I love Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha,’ is one of my favorite books. Books about American politics and American history I find fascinating. Books on President Harry Truman and LBJ. I find things like that fascinating.”

Favorite movie: “My favorite movie is ‘The Godfather.’ I think it’s perfect. I could watch it a hundred times. I’m at the point where I’m about to show it to my teenage sons. But I want to save it. I don’t want them to be too young. I want to sit down with them so they can appreciate every shot and the cinematic storytelling. I want them to appreciate it.”

Favorite musical artists: “Well, I’m a big fan of Frank Sinatra. I’m a big fan of Marvin

Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Those are my three favorites, I think.”