MY FAVOURITE THINGS
The podcast I enjoy the most is... The Last Word on BBC Radio 4. I love it. I’m fascinated by other people’s lives. It’s very motivating. The last book I loved was... Craig Brown’s Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses Of Princess Margaret. Best restaurant for a da
everything, but I also don’t see the point of saving yourself for two projects a year. Before The Split,
I made a conscious decision to do more drama.’ Setting up a production company (the one that is making Hang Ups with his wife) turned out to be a good idea, he says. ‘Having a young family has coincided with the busiest period in my working life. It feels like everything is happening at once. We started a company and then had a third child.’ He smiles and takes a deep breath. Their youngest son was, as he puts it, a ‘joyous surprise’.
Apart from the flu, he seems very happy with life, beaming whenever he mentions his kids. Life has been slightly different for him since The Split, as he’s now regularly accosted in the street by people who are angry about his character Nathan’s behaviour (he cheated on his wife). Stephen says, ‘People are very disappointed in me. They feel like I’ve really let them down. He’s presented as such a nice, honest guy at the beginning of the show. Everyone has their own reactions, especially on Twitter. It’s not easy for anyone who has been cheated on… It’s a compliment that people are that engaged in it.’ The second series is set to be recorded next year.
He’s consciously avoided heading to Hollywood, preferring to build a family life here, but you can see the ambition glinting in his eyes. He’s only just getting started. He’s cautious, though, about maintaining a life outside work. ‘This business is wearing. Some people can’t deal with the uncertainty. The spotlight either shines on you or it doesn’t and that can be very damaging. As a career, it can chip away at your mental wellbeing if you’re not careful. I don’t want to end up as some bitter and twisted older actor who feels thwarted.’
One of his biggest weaknesses is that he’s terrible at taking holidays, and I wonder if part of that work ethic comes from his upbringing. He was born in north London to Irish parents, Mary and James, and has two sisters. It wasn’t a middle class, intellectual household, and he didn’t even think about anything like acting. ‘My dad was a builder. I might as well have wanted to be the Pope. My parents left school at 14 and came to London. They prized education above everything else. They never had the chances I did. They were smart but uneducated.’
The obedient son, he studied law at Cambridge University, where he met people like [playwright] Jez Butterworth, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Williams and TV duos Mel and Sue and Armstrong and Miller. While there, he said he realised that, ‘Actors aren’t unicorns. They’re not mythical beasts.’
After he graduated, he took a year off to nurse his mother, who died of colon cancer at the age of
45. Her death sealed his determination to follow the career path he wanted. ‘I was confused, fragile and upset after mum dying, so I basically hid in RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) for three years. Trying to head out into the world then would not have been a good idea for me.’ After that, he slowly built up his reputation in the theatre, initially staying away from screen roles. ‘I didn’t leave drama school until I was
26. Then I refused to do film or TV for five years… I liked being on stage and I knew I wouldn’t be typecast on stage. In a way, I was right. Once you have success on screen, people find it hard to think of you in any other way.’ He’s keen to point out that he’s not moaning, although he’d quite like to go home to bed now. ‘I’m so happy to be an actor. It’s an imaginative, creative process. You’re dealing with people, with great writing… I know some people get their rocks off with spreadsheets or whatever, but for me, this is fascinating.’
Someone said to him recently,
‘What are you going to do when you grow up?’ And he just thought, ‘I don’t want to grow up. It’s a privilege to do a job where it’s about keeping yourself open to anything.’ He also doesn’t care that he turned 50 this year, either. ‘Fifty. What are you going to do about it? There hasn’t been an open-top bus parade. It just seemed faintly absurd. I still feel 22.’ Hang Ups (Channel 4) is airing in August