Literary character a big challenge for English actor
The world heard it first on Reddit: Benedict Cumberbatch declared his interest in playing Patrick Melrose during an “Ask Me Anything” interview he did in 2013.
Word traveled that he had named Melrose — the protagonist of five semiautobiographical novels by British writer Edward St. Aubyn — as the literary character he most wanted to play next.
Five years later, Cumberbatch has earned an Emmy nomination for best actor in a limited series or movie for his role in “Patrick Melrose,” a five-part Showtime series.
The English actor said the role was one of his toughest to date: a witty, brilliant but dark human suffering the effects of alcoholism, drug addiction and child abuse.
There was also the pressure inherent in adapting, as he called it, “some of the most startling prose of the 21st century.”
But Cumberbatch is no stranger to challenging parts. By phone from London, he discussed the role.
Q: You’ve talked about “Patrick Melrose” being a dream role. Why was this character so appealing?
A: Primarily, I guess, it’s the journey he goes on. It’s the scope of one man’s extraordinary circumstances and the shift of someone who begins as a victim of child abuse and devolves into a drug addict and the continuing trauma upsetting any stability within his own family.
Finally, being able to deploy the special equipment needed to pull free from that gravity to become someone who has survived and who is going to be integrated into society in a positive way with love and trust. The ghosts are still there, but he can live with them because he’s going to do something good with his life.
There’s a profound attraction to the role because that’s quite a journey to go on by any actor’s standards. And then, on top of that, you have the most beautiful form in the books and in the episodic structure that David Nicholls manufactured. Nicholls wrote the script. You have the most searing, acerbic, dazzling wit and you have that shifting from hilarity to profundity or tragedy in a heartbeat.
Q: The novels have such a distinct prose. Were you intimidated at all about bringing those words to life?
A: Of course, because some of the most profound achievements of the book are deflections or metaphors or reflections of the human condition, or a peculiar aspect of an extreme experience. Not all of those can be turned into dialogue or action, or the kind of things that move the story along.
You have to step into a new art form, which is adaptation, and lean on that adage that an image can speak a thousand words.
Q: What kind of head space did you have to be in to play someone in such torment?
A: Quite a few. That’s the thing about him: There’s something innately actor-ish about the role. ... When you’re in recovery, it’s about this vast, aching nothingness. There’s very, very specific shifts in tone with each episodic steppingstone.
As far as the mechanics, what drug was acting on him, what stimulus or lack of it — that was something I had to chart very carefully, with people who were profoundly honest about their own experiences with drugs and alcohol. ... They were very, very helpful.