Luaine Lee.
Being married to an actor can be difficult, says British actor David Morrissey. ‘‘It’s a profession where you can’t plan anything. Talk to my wife about planning a holiday – forget it. There’s always a job coming up or if it hasn’t, you think a job might come up. So it’s that sense of living in a very insecure atmosphere. You don’t know who’s coming home.’’
Sometimes the role stays with him long after they’ve called ‘‘cut’’ on the set, he says.
The Liverpudlian has portrayed everything from a taxi driver to a politician, but is best known as the devious mastermind, The Governor, in The Walking Dead. He co-starred in shows like State of Play, three Red Riding films, and The Other Boleyn Girl, but his latest role in The Missing is one of those that dogs his footsteps.
‘‘It’s a very heavy story of a family going through a very traumatic situation,’’ says Morrissey, who’s wearing a light grey suit and a navy shirt with tiny flowers on it.
‘‘So I’d come home at the end of the day and wasn’t ready to sit down and watch some light TV or chat about the garden. You do bring it home with you. So my wife’s a saint in that sense of trying to deal with an actor. It’s really tough. It depends on the project – some you go to work, you do it, go home, and it’s fine. But not this one.’’
In The Missing, he plays the father of a daughter who was abducted 11 years ago and suddenly reappears. Her return shatters the family dynamic.
Morrissey is no stranger to that. He grew up in a working-class family where his dad held down two jobs and his mother had three (among them was selling Avon products).
His father, a shoemaker, died when David was 15.
‘‘I became an adult quite quickly at that time,’’ he says in his perfect BBC accent. ‘‘That is the time in any life when they realise they’re not immortal and it depends on when it happens to you. And I think I realised at 15 that death is going to happen, and you’re not immortal.’’
He is the youngest of four and says his two older brothers helped ease his loss. ‘‘My oldest brother is 12 years older than me. They stepped into that role really, so I never felt like it was absent. They were around, and they were great for me growing up. They took on the parental role very quickly. My grandmother lived with us as well, and an uncle lived near. Family all
Some roles stay with David Morrissey, discovers
rallied around, and they were all very close. It was very traumatic, but I didn’t feel alone in any way.’’
Morrissey, 52, was also 15 when he first stepped foot on a stage.
‘‘It sort of saved my life in a way. I was in Liverpool and was knocking about and didn’t know what I wanted to do really. Then I did a play at school and I loved it. I wasn’t very academic, wasn’t getting along well at school, my studies were not good, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
‘‘Then I got on stage for this play, and I thought, ‘This is really giving me something. I love it! I love what it’s giving me’.
‘‘Not just an ego boost but learning lines, being in a different character, all those things.’’
Married for 10 years to novelist Esther Freud, Morrissey has three children, two boys, 22 and 12 and a daughter 19. He’s very proud, he says, that all three attended his wedding. In fact, he and Freud dated for 13 years before they married.
‘‘I think it was to do with the