Spall’s journey to dark
Talks to cinema’s ‘nice guy’ Timothy Spall about his role in political drama The Journey.
James Croot
’m quite a nice bloke you know – where’s this coming from?’’ Timothy Spall is responding to his recent run of playing real-life rotters, polarising people who many lesser actors might have run from.
There was a time when he played more heroic figures – Winston Churchill (The King’s Speech), football coach Peter Taylor (The Damned United), the UK’s last hangman Albert Pierrepoint (Pierrepoint). But since his award-winning turn as eccentric genius JMW Turner in 2014’s Mr Turner, the now 60-year-old Batterseaborn actor has been on a distinctly darker trajectory.
Already in 2017, New Zealand viewers have seen him play disgraced Holocaust denier David Irving in Denial and now he’s taken on the towering figure of firebrand Democratic Unionist Party Leader Ian Paisley in The Journey. Set for release here on July 13, it’s a fictional account of how Paisley and long-time enemy Sinn Fein politician Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney) bridged their own divide to change the course of Northern Ireland’s troubled history.
Speaking via phone while on a flying visit to New York to promote the film, Spall admits it was ‘‘bizarre’’ and ‘‘remarkable’’ playing Irving and Paisley straight after each other.
‘‘I jokingly say, ‘You wait for a No 77 bus to come along for an hour and then two come at the same time.’ I didn’t expect Dr Paisley to come around the corner and I certainly didn’t expect David Irving to come around the other one.
‘‘I don’t know whether other people didn’t want to play them, or whether I’m the go-to bloke to do it – I’ve no idea. I’m glad I did though, because they were very, very different, although they were both loathed and idolised. Dr Paisley was adored by his own people and absolutely despised by his opposition.’’
Having grown up in London, Spall says he was obviously well aware of the background to this story. ‘‘Sometimes, I directly felt the results of it. Such was the massive bombing campaign in London by the IRA [Irish Republican Army who had ties to Sinn Fein] that you would have to have had your head in the sand not to have noticed it.
‘‘However, it had kind of gone off my radar a bit until I saw these two implacable figures [Paisley and McGuinness], these two arch-enemies, in power together, laughing – The Chuckle Brothers. I was astounded and intrigued. So when the ludicrous prospect of playing Paisley came up, I thought it was so mad that I just had to think about it.
‘‘Then I read the script and thought it was amazing. I laughed a lot and then I cried at the end of it. I checked with a lot of people if it was going to be something that was going to offend, if I’d be getting myself into trouble. The one thing I didn’t want to do – my politics or anything else aside – was upset the family.’’
Those concerns allayed, then there was the small matter of transforming himself into a charismatic, but cantankerous Protestant preacher more than 20 years his senior. How did he go about that? ‘I saw these two implacable figures [Paisley and McGuinness], these two arch-enemies, in power together, laughing. I was intrigued. So when the prospect of playing Paisley came up, I just had to think about it.’
‘‘It’s always boring when you listen to actors going on about these things. For me, it’s about seeing it from their point of view. Trying to feel like them, spending a lot of time observing them, reading about them. I always look at pictures, if they exist – particularly of people who are strident, powerful – of what they are like as children or babies. Also, what are they like when you catch moments of vulnerability in these granite-like, unbending characters. You piece together a sort of psychological tapestry to use your emotions to connect with. I always put aside my own politics and proclivities about something and play it absolutely from their point of view. That also means how somebody is physically – how they talk, walk – it’s all that. Trying to feel like them, rather than impersonate them.’’
At its heart, The Journey is essentially a two-hander. So did he and Meaney spend much time together beforehand?
‘‘We had a few days’ rehearsal,’’ Spall confirms. ‘‘But I was familiar with Colm’s work and really liked him as an actor. We’d been in the same film together [The Damned United – Meaney played Taylor and Brian Clough’s great rival Don Revie], although we really didn’t have any scenes together. So we were both very experienced, both aware we were in something unusual – and a bit tricky – so we just got on with it.
‘‘I always prefer to work with people who are really good. Contrary to popular belief, actors don’t like working with people who aren’t any good just so they look good. When the other actors are really good, it’s so much easier. If you’re trying to be real and someone is being real against you, it makes it all so much easier.’’
Spall’s praise extends to other Journey actors Freddy Highmore and Toby Stephens, as well as, in one of his last roles, the late, great John Hurt.
‘‘I knew John a bit, we were in Harry Potter together and I’d bumped into him a couple of times. I was a massive admirer of him. When I was 15 or 16 and starting to think about being an actor, I saw The Naked Civil Servant on television and it astounded me. Then when I was at RADA [the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] he came and did a speech.
‘‘10 Rillington Place, A Man For All Seasons – he was a wonderful, wonderful actor, so I was delighted to get a chance to work with him. We did have a bit of a chat and I was delighted to hear that when he was asked to play the part [of MI5 honcho Harry Patterson] he wanted to know who was playing Paisley and when they mentioned my name, he went: ooh, he liked me, so he was going to do it. I