10 things that changed my life

Actor Paul Higgins Interviewed by Adam Robertson

1

Going to a seminary

just living in that huge, multi-cultural I WENT to junior seminary metropolis. when I was 12 training to be a At that time, certainly Wishaw, but missionary priest. That was a even Glasgow was a more mono-racial, kind of boarding school in monocultural place.

4

Coatbridge, not far from Wishaw where

I grew up. But we lived there almost all the time. I WENT to research a job in

It was an Italian order so I was sort Carrickmacross in Ireland of partly raised by all these Italian and there was a cattle market guys from a very different culture. I there. Funnily enough, I’d had a great time, I have to say, though grown up next to a cattle market – cows obviously I didn’t become a priest. used to come down our street with a

When I realised I couldn’t do celibacy field at one end and the market at the and wasn’t sure about god – all the other. There’d be cow shit all over things you need to be sure about – I was the road. still reluctant to leave because I had In Carrickmacross – I’d be about 27 such good friends there. – I had a look at this market for

You hear horror stories about something to do and the cows seminaries but I had never were being unloaded from heard any about that one. trucks and these boys That was a place where were sitting on we didn’t watch TV, we the wall. held things in common One of them and didn’t really have had a massive, possessions, we had long cane. His job time for meditation. was to just batter,

For a working-class very casually and boy from the west of without animosity, Scotland, it was an the cows until they amazing opportunity to got up. see life in a different way. I went back to my

digs and the only thing for dinner was beef stew. I couldn’t stomach it, and I haven’t eaten meat since that night – and that was 35 years ago or something like that. I thought it was for one night only but I’ve never touched it since.

2

Joining a drama club

Going to a cattle market

AFTER I left the seminary, I was going to go to the University of Glasgow. I had the qualifications but hadn’t applied because I was going to be a priest. I got left in the lurch and went to Our Lady’s High in Motherwell. I WAS a chain smoker and a

I joined the drama group and we heavy drinker. But got invited just to sing because I was when I met my a singer and the drama group did wife, I musicals. We went to a drama camp decided to stop. I in Cumbernauld shortly before I was used to smoke about meant to go to university but the theatre 50 a day. I once director gave me the lead part in this smoked 80 in a thing we were devising. day so I stopped

I’d never thought of myself as an actor, that and started not for one second, but he gave me the running pretty lead part and asked why I was going much at the to university. same time.

I didn’t really have an answer other I’ve been than everybody being proud. So I took running and not a year out and auditioned for drama smoking ever since schools and got into Central in London and it was one of the and that was a massive moment in best things I ever did was my life. to stop killing myself.

6 IT was a big deal from a guy HE’S a theatre director – an from Wishaw and being American guy who lives in around people I’d never met London. I didn’t meet him before. People in my class, until I was 30-something – in one person was the daughter of a very my early 30s anyway. I didn’t really famous novelist. I’d never met anyone understand acting. He’s written a like that in my life so it opened my eyes couple of influential books, one is

3Living in London 5

Stopping smoking

Mike Alfreds

called Different Every Night.

But he was like three years of drama school in one month’s rehearsal. He completely changed my approach to acting and what it’s for and how it’s done.

To this day, I’m influenced by his ideas. I worked with him a couple of times but he’s been very influential to a lot of people, guys like Mark Rylance.

He was a hard taskmaster, he annoyed people. He wouldn’t be upset by that – he knows he upsets people. But he taught me that it’s not about what your character is feeling – something you get obsessed with as an actor – they’re internal, they don’t communicate to an audience.

If you think of what your character’s feelings make your character do, so still thinking about them, but taking it to the next level and asking what they make you do or try to do.

When you’re trying to do something with someone else on stage, that is transmittable to the audience. It’s not about your internal workings, it’s something you’re putting out into the world.

7

Writing

I ALWAYS wanted to be a writer but didn’t believe in it somehow. I went to therapy for a while and started writing trying to understand my dad really. A play came out of that – Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us – for the National Theatre of Scotland.

I got over that hump of wanting to be a writer to managing to sit down and be able to finish something and see it produced. It was a great production, the director did a great job with the cast and I’ve kept writing since then. It’s stayed with me.

8

The Thick of It

I ABSOLUTELY loved doing The Thick of It. I didn’t do it for that long. I think I joined for the second three which were then shown as a series of six but they were made as two batches of three.

I did a couple of hour-long specials which I really enjoyed because there was more scope for the characters and did the film (In The Loop). I had a great time doing it, I loved that process where you shoot a lot of material and they sort it out for you.

9

Stopping drinking and becoming vegan

THIS book called Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer turned me vegan pretty much overnight. I’ve been vegan for 14 years and I’m an ambassador for The Vegan Society. I’ve been a trustee of The Vegan Society as well so that’s a big thing in my life.

I also stopped drinking just past six years ago. I was very reliant on alcohol to relax, to socialise, every occasion was one for alcohol but stopping was one of the best things I ever did.

10

This Is Memorial Device

WE did this play two years ago at the Edinburgh festival. I was doing another play and I got given the book This Is Memorial Device. I hadn’t read it but it was sent to me. It’s set in Airdrie at a time when I was young, or younger than I am now.

We set up a meeting with director Graham Eatough who adapted David Keenan’s amazing novel. I didn’t know how he could make it a one-man show. I should say it’s not really one-man because there’s taped interviews but there’s only one actor in the flesh.

Graham did a fantastic job of adapting, I loved doing it and the audience responded well. It’s very funny and unusual in what it tries to do. It’s entertaining and it’s funny but you go on a journey with it that takes you to unexpected places, including me and I’m trying to take the audience with me.

It’s so good to be involved in something so engaging and entertaining but demanding as well and to find that audiences really respond to it is fantastic. To have another chance to do this, not just in Edinburgh but also in Glasgow, Aberdeen and London is a dream.

This Is Memorial Device is at the Tron, Glasgow from March 27-30; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh April 3-6; Aberdeen Performing Arts April 18-20, and Riverside Studios, London, April 23-May 11