Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
A GOD WHO RAISES HELL
Ian McShane is a modern-day god who lives life to the full – and causes lots of trouble – in a new fantasy drama. And he says he’s had plenty of practice
What might a modern- day god look like here on Earth? Not how you might expect, according to Ian McShane. ‘They wouldn’t go around looking like gods,’ he says when we meet in New York to talk about his new TV series American Gods. ‘If you met a god as you usually see them portrayed, with a robe and a big white beard and a deep voice, you’d say, “Don’t be silly, take that robe off, have a shave and start talking normally.” If you wanted to be taken seriously as a god, then you’d just act like a normal person.’
Which is just what he does in the new show, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, in which he plays a mysterious travelling conman called Mr Wednesday, otherwise known as the old Norse god Odin who’s returned to Earth to try to save the world from the new technological gods that, in his opinion, are threatening civilisation. ‘He’s forming an army from all the good old gods who came to America from all over the world with the immigrants years ago – and there were so many of them: a god for spring, a god for winter, a god for this, a god for that – to fight against the new gods who represent technology.
‘Mr Wednesday is a modern guy himself and he’s not actually against change. But he’s saying that if you don’t remember the past you’ll be condemned to repeat it, and mostly the bad parts, so if you spend all your time looking at your iPhone instead of enjoying life then you never learn anything. Wednesday’s not perfect. In many ways he’s as capricious and wilful as the gods he doesn’t like. But the difference is you’ll have a better time with Wednesday, because he lives life to the fullest. And his view of things is quite straightforward – if you’re good to the gods, then nice things will happen to you.’
He says the series, set in the modern day, is a unique mixture of mystery, humour, cliff-hanging tension and epic spectacle. ‘I don’t want to spoil it for you, though, because I’ve been constantly surprised by the directions this show takes and that’s half of the fun. The book it’s based on is terrific – Gaiman is a very gifted writer – but it’s not what you’d call a “normal” book. So in the opening sequences you have the gods coming to America, and then as the story goes on you have reveal after reveal as you learn more about what’s happening. There’s animation and extraordinary special effects, there’s magic realism and a human story to ground it all in reality.’
The human story follows Shadow Moon (played by ex-Hollyoaks actor Ricky Whittle, who came second on Strictly in 2009), a down-on-his-luck criminal newly released from prison and mourning the death of his wife. He falls in with Wednesday and agrees to accompany him on a road trip across America – supposedly as his bodyguard but in reality, as he comes to understand, to help him amass an army of old gods who have incorporated themselves into modern life. Thus a battle between the old gods and the new is set in motion. ‘Their relationship is the most important part of the series,’ says Ian. ‘Why does Wednesday pick on Shadow? Why does he want to take him on this journey? There’s a lot to learn, and I think Shadow’s got the hardest part because he’s the focal point of the story. Things happen to him, and that’s tough for an actor to portray.’
Did Ian pass on any words of wisdom to him? ‘I don’t think he needs advice from me. He came in very prepared and we hit it off from the start. We have a built-in rapport because we’re from the same part of the world and both support Manchester United, who my dad played for. He’s a lovely kid and I admire how he’s handling his career – he’s not shying away from fame or success, he’s embracing it, which is the best way to do it.’
It’s something Ian himself has always done. He’ll be 75 this year, one of the last of a generation of hellraisers, but he’s now many years sober, radiantly healthy and happily married to his third wife, American actress Gwen Humble. Along with American Gods, a guest slot on Game Of Thrones and a substantial part in the new John Wick film, John Wick: Chapter 2, he’s clearly not struggling for work either. So what’s been his secret? ‘Luck,’ he says briskly. ‘I’ve been very lucky in my life. People talk rubbish about “you make your own luck” – perhaps sometimes you do to a certain extent – but you have to be lucky in where and when you were born, and who you were born to. I was born in England, into a happy family, we had the NHS and a great education system. I loved my parents, and I was brought up in a healthy atmosphere. My dad was a professional football player, and I wasn’t bad either, but I wasn’t good enough to do it professionally. So I got lucky in a different way, with a drama teacher at school who said, “I’m putting you in a play” and it turned out I was rather good at it.’ He attended RADA in the early 60s and cut his teeth with some of the greats. ‘My dear friend Johnny Hurt, who sadly passed away earlier this year, and I were at drama school together and we did our first movie together, The Wild And The Willing. I did a TV show with Michael Caine in 1963, a series of plays called First Night. I did War And Remembrance with Robert Mitchum. I’ve worked with them all, George C Scott, Ava Gardner, Richard Burton... they don’t make them like that any more. People take themselves too seriously these days, or they have 17 managers saying, “You can’t say this, you can’t do that, you must appeal across the spectrum.”
‘But these were regular people. When I worked with Burton on the film Villain in 1971, he and Liz Taylor were the two most famous people in the world. But Burton was the same as he’d always been. He’d come on set in the morning, we’d have breakfast and go over the lines and just talk like regular people. And why not? Movie stars aren’t gods. My idea of gods are people who do good things, like teachers or scientists. There’s no big difference between movie stars and anybody else, except movie stars get paid better! I’ve had a wonderful time with my career.’
‘He’s capricious and wilful, but you’ll have lots of fun with him’
American Gods is available now on Amazon Prime, with new episodes released on Mondays.