‘Delicate, dangerous, anarchic’: Daniel Craig, Michael Mann, Matthew Macfadyen and more remember Michael Gambon
‘The impact he had on my life, and others’, was profound’
Learning of Michael’s death was a shock. I wish I had seen him more, and I wish I had told him what I thought of him. He was such a magnificent human being and the impact he had on my life – and that of many others – was profound.
When I was at the National in 1995, he wasn’t even around and people were in awe of him. [Gambon was one of the original members of the National Theatre company.] His presence strode the corridors; I imagine it still does. Then, in 2002, we did a two-hander at the Royal Court: a one-hour Caryl Churchill play about cloning called A Number.
The rumours were true – to an extent. He was a very powerful and intimidating man: fierce, loud and always ready to challenge. He understood how power works, the impact of being gentle as well as vicious, and what it means to explore your flaws without apologising for them.
But he was less tough than I expected, because he was smart and secure enough to know he didn’t have to muscle it out with anybody. And most importantly he was playful, which made him an expert at keeping it loose on stage as well as an absolute joy to work with.
Acting can be an ephemeral, elusive thing that sometimes escapes the greatest. Michael understood that, and if he didn’t feel it, he didn’t do it. He never forced emotion, he would allow it to creep up and overwhelm him. It was mesmerising to watch and born of great experience and a deep well of emotional understanding.
He reminded me of a really cool kid doing tricks on a skateboard, or a surfer entertaining the whole beach, captivating his audience. He’d walk out to the end of the stage and sort of hang 10, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
We hung out a lot when we rehearsed A Number. He loved telling stories: that famous one about how he first met Olivier at his audition for the National and accidentally put a nail through his finger. And how he went to see Olivier when he was bedbound, near the end of his life. “What are you up to, dear boy?” Olivier asked. Michael told him about The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. “Fucking hell!” said Olivier. “Call my fucking agent! Why the fuck don’t I get jobs like that?”
Michael also loved spinning yarns and could be really mischievous. We were once at a tedious fundraiser – both nursing pints of lager and wondering when we could go home. Then Michael started to twinkle. “My mother used to drive cranes in Belfast,” he told everyone. “In fact, she was part of the construction of the Titanic.” They bought it: “Wow! My goodness!” He carried on and on. Having her fly sorties with the RAF during the second world war deep into enemy territory. Just delicious yarns.
However serious he was about acting – and he was extremely serious about it – Michael was very humble, perhaps because he remained deeply rooted to what was quite a modest background. That groundedness had a marked effect on me. I think he believed you had to highlight all the glorious absurdity of our profession, not in a cynical way, just enough to keep you on tip toes. Someone once asked what he did for a living. “I stand up,” he said, “I put on makeup, and I shout in the evenings.”
Michael had a beautiful masculinity with a big feminine side. There was a section of A Number in which he’d lie on stage smoking -–he’d get through most of a packet of Benson & Hedges in 60 minutes. He was tall and longlimbed, his feet were big and his hands were large, yet he could hold himself like a ballerina. The smoke would spiral up from him into the light. I’d just stand and watch. It was very seductive.
He was very aware of his own physicality. Sometimes those long fingers were like hooks; other times, like a dancer’s, lithe and expressive. He told me that he was once in a restaurant when Francis Bacon passed his table. “God, I love your hands,” said Bacon. “I’d love to paint them.” So Michael cleared the table, put his hands down on the cloth, drew round them and said: “There ya go!”
After we’d done the show, we’d always have a quiet pint together, then he’d jump on the tube and I’d ride home on my bike. I miss him. I hope he knew he was beloved.
‘Simply the greatest raconteur of our time’ Simon Callow, actor
I go back a long way with Gambon. We first met in 1968, when I was manning the box office at the Mermaid theatre while figuring out how to become an actor. He was established, though not yet famous, and was stepping out with the secretary of the Mermaid’s production manager, who introduced us. I was struck by his physical presence – not tall but somehow massive. Huge ribcage. Great big feet and long-fingered, ever-active hands. He was attired in what appeared to be a khaki bush-ranger’s uniform. Unruly sandy hair. Cigarette in hand. His demeanour was infectiously humorous, sly hilarity in his eyes, mouth always on the point of laughter. When the laugh came, it was big – a great guffaw. His accent was indeterminate, a hint of Irish, then posh in an almost comically overstated way. He was charming, interested, funny and curiously sexy.
There was also something ungraspable, will-o-the-wisp-like about him. Much later, when we had come to know each other well, he told me that as a young actor, he used to do the rounds of his local pubs of an evening, and would be a totally different person in each one.
I didn’t meet him again for over 10 years, by which time he was a huge West End star, especially noted for his delicate and bewildered vet in Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests, which I had seen more than once, trying to fathom the nature of Michael’s comic genius. Then I joined the National Theatre, and witnessed his staggering performance in Pinter’s Betrayal, with its final sexually-charged outpouring of love. This was a new Gambon, romantic, lyrical, almost operatic.
Shortly after I was cast in Galileo, which was a massive, very exposing challenge for Michael: four-and-a-half hours of high seriousness, its hero broken by the Church of Rome but somehow surviving. Undaunted, Michael just got on with it, filled it, filled himself, somehow, with titanic power and fierce intellectual energy, but also tenderness and generosity. He never, to my knowledge, discussed the part, certainly not in rehearsal; he just did it. His single-minded demeanour only faltered once, and that was on what has since become the legendary occasion when the whole acting company applauded him after he got back to his dressing room. He wept, he said, like a baby, but we never again saw any other form of surplus emotion from him.
Au contraire: while never for a