For Mark Williams, acting work has been a leap of faith
Although he’s done 90 TV episodes dressed in a Catholic cassock and a black saturno, Mark Williams is no believer.
The British actor, who stars as the indefatigable title character in “Father Brown,” admits he’s not a man of faith. But he does champion the fictional father’s values.
“I was brought up in the Church of England, so that’s part of my culture,” he says. “But I don’t practice my religion. Father Brown believes in redemption, and he believes that we’re all God’s children, and he’s a man of faith, so I respect him.”
In his own way, Williams is a believer.
“It’s a big act of faith to do this job, because you don’t know when you’re going to work next, or if you’re going to work again, ever, after every single job,” he says.
“Toward the end of every job everybody gets a bit nervous about whether they’ll work again. So sometimes it’s a bit despairing. It’s not like you can go play a violin, or write a short story, or practice something or do some painting. Unless you’re in a production, you’re not working, so you’re not exercising your skills. So that becomes very difficult,” he says.
There have been times in his over-30-year career that he’s toyed with the idea of quitting.
“During night shoots in the winter, shooting for 14 hours. Yeah, I feel like quitting then,” he confesses.
The results of all those night shoots and dedication is streaming on BritBox this month, with two new episodes of the G.K. Chesterton classic, “Father Brown,” airing.
The 60-year-old
Williams says the reason he became an actor in the first place was simple.
“Acting was the only thing I could do,” he shrugs.
“I was at school and we put some plays on, and I was onstage — about 11 years old — and I thought, ‘I can do this!’ I couldn’t add up or play sports or was no good at music, so I seized hold of it,” he recalls.
Williams grew up in Worcester, England, 100 miles northwest of London. “We came from a small midlands town called Bromsgrove, and we didn’t have any money,” he says.
“My parents were the first generation to be educated after the Second World War. They both went to art school. My grandfather was a paintsprayer in the motor works, and both my grandmothers worked as well, in shops and nursing. And my other grandfather was a clerk in a big chocolate factory.”
His father was an architectural technician, says Williams. “Mother worked in the local library.”
While he was waiting for his big break, Williams toiled at a variety of jobs.
“I worked as a painter, at a stud farm with bulls. I worked in a psychogeriatric ward in a mental hospital. You may do (an acting) job, but it’s only for two weeks. So I was in my 30s before I got a regular job. For some reason I stuck it out,” he says. “It was blind faith and ignorance.”
The tall, graying actor is the veteran of a colorful gallery of roles from
Arthur Weasley in seven “Harry Potter” films to “Dr. Who,” “Being Human,” “101 Dalmatians” and “Shakespeare in Love.” He even played a vicious killer on an episode of the “Inspector George Gently” series.
In fact, when Williams’ agent first told him about “Father Brown,” he was gainfully employed on another acting project.
“I couldn’t audition, and my agent said, ‘They want you for a show called “Father Brown.’ ” And I said, ‘Oh, that’s good, but I can’t audition.’ She said, ‘No, it’s an offer.’ So I said, ‘What part?’ I thought it was going to be maybe a murderer or something like that. And my agent said, ‘Father Brown.’ So that was really exciting. I’d read quite a lot of Chesterton before. Of course, Father Brown is supposed to be small and I’m a 6-footer, so I have to act small.”