Movie’s star: I’ve come to the conclusion people are more kind than horrible
Timothy Spall has said he believes the idea that people of different generations are set against each other is not true, because most people are kind.
The actor, who plays a 90-year-old widower in his latest film, has always had an affinity with the older generation as he was raised by one grandmother and had the other living nearby.
He said: “I think the death of the extended family has ‘othered’ old people by making it less likely that people will be involved with them.”
But he dismissed any suggestion that the generations are at war, saying the idea has been “inflamed out of proportion.” Spall, 64, added: “I’ve come to the conclusion that 99% of the population, at any given time, is more inclined to be kind than horrible.
“You see it all the time, an old person falls in the street, people come and help, they don’t walk by.”
In Spall’s new film, The Last Bus, he portrays a pensioner journeying from Scotland to England using his bus pass and carrying his wife’s ashes with him. He embraced the role though said it came as a shock to see himself on screen, adding: “Because I don’t feel like me when I’m playing it, I feel like the person I’m playing.”