Stevens’ career takes a new twist
Fans of the series “Downton Abbey” will long remember the final episode of Season 3. The character Matthew Crawley, who was the show’s male romantic lead, heir to the title of the Earl of Grantham and an all-around nice guy, was killed off. That plot turn shocked and angered viewers. But it was a different story for Dan Stevens, the man who’d been playing him for those first three seasons. His career took off.
The British actor had already done plenty of theater and was piling up appearances in a number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies when he landed the role on “Downton.” But three years of living among the upstairs and downstairs folks in the North Yorkshire mansion was enough; it was time to spread his acting wings. A play in New York (“The Heiress”) led to a part in a film (“A Walk Among the Tombstones”), small parts in other films, a starring role in “Beauty and the Beast,” and three seasons as the lead in the science-fiction action series “Legion.”
In the new film “Blithe Spirit,” a remake of Noel Coward’s 1941 play, which became a classic 1945 film starring Rex Harrison, Stevens plays the male lead, Charles Condomine, an alcoholic trying to adapt one of his own novels — actually written by someone else — into a screenplay, but is suffering from writer’s block, and is being badgered by his needy wife (Isla Fisher),
the ghost of his mischievous first wife (Leslie Mann) and a fraudulent psychic (Judi Dench). In acting terms, Stevens is trying his hand at screwball comedy. He spoke about the film by phone from his home in Los Angeles.
Q: How did “Blithe Spirit” come into your life?
A: There was a sort of circularity to it. My first West End theater job was in a production of “Hay Fever” by Noel Coward, starring Judi Dench, and directed
by Sir Peter Hall. And now, years down the line, his son Ed approached me and said, “There’s a really fun new adaptation of ‘Blithe Spirit,’ I’m going to direct it, do you want to be involved?” And it had all the right hallmarks of something I would want to do.
Q: So did you go back to look at the 1945 Rex Harrison film?
A: I know the Rex Harrison version, but I wouldn’t say I revisited it for this. There’s no point in remak
ing something the same way. In my mind, I’m not doing it for the Coward purists. It’s to introduce some comedy and silliness based on something that was written by Coward, but to a modern audience, and, I hope, with a bit of a modern flavor to it.
Q: Was there anything in particular that attracted you to playing Charles Condomine?
A: I’ve always thought of him as a sort of classic British character, a man at the end of his tether, whether it’s a John Cleese type, or maybe Leonard Rossiter. Men who are sort of on the brink of a nervous breakdown, usually fueled by a martini or two. I’ve always found there to be something funny about their pain, in a way. Their tragedy is that they’re just ridiculous and funny.