That strange paradox he somehow makes funny.There are so many examples of characters who evidence this “trend” in the 90s-from Buffalo Bill in the Silence of the Lambs, to Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar, to whatever was going on with Chandler’s father, Charles, a character who was written as a gay man played by a cis woman (Kathleen Turner) on Friends. They're resentful of their mortal lives, but they’re clinging on to them at the same time. The other two are in dustbins so they can’t move. In Endgame, one character can’t stand up one character can’t sit down. In Not I, the character is just a disembodied mouth.
He takes away a lot of a human’s autonomy in his plays. He was Buddhist in the way he understood that life – having a body, being in the material world – is suffering. They’re very spiritual books.Īn aspect of Samuel Beckett, which seems to be one of the core grains at the centre of his writing, is a resentment for having been born. It has all these beautifully thought-out ideas. Ultimately, it shifts and changes shape until that person reaches a level of maturity. Everybody has a sort of spirit animal that follows them around and is their companion. It's essentially a world like ours, but it has these wonderfully told, magical elements. The world building in them is incredible. When I was a kid, I loved reading Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. He gently led by my hand, and helped me slay the dragon of my own anxiety. All the fear and nervousness I was feeling, practicing in this gigantic room in front of him was a pain barrier I had to get through.
He’s really sweet and kind, almost childlike. He has a knack for taking you in very, very close, almost whispering to you, making you feel like you’re the only person in the room. Part of why he is so wonderful is because he is incredibly positive and encouraging. Early in rehearsals, I’d been practicing the opening speech by Richard III, murmuring to myself at home, before doing it in front of a big table, with Trevor sat behind it. The last time I was on stage in a significant way was with the director Trevor Nunn. A lot of more experienced actors do too much acting. He's got enough self-assurance that he knows exactly how much to do, how much to portray, how much to act. He seemed to come out of the box fully aware. For example, in The Green Knight he plays this scavenger who’s being all nicey-nice. You can't take your eyes off Barry Keoghan when he's on screen. You’re thinking: “This is great – getting accepted to an extreme degree.” It was an important moment. The waves of energy you're getting from an audience is addictive, the approval you’re receiving at that hour of your life. It’s stimulating for a kid, the cheering, the clapping. I caught the bug after that – performing to audiences on stage absolutely knocked me for six. When I was 12, I did a play in my primary school, which included improv and audience participation. I remember saying to my mother when I was young, about 10: “I'd like to be on television.” She said, “Oh, we’ll enrol you in it.” It was said in support, without knowledge about how things worked, of how people ended up on television. Everybody treating him like he's a fully-fledged human being, and not a complete nutter. Particularly Ace Ventura, which was great because the director Tom Shadyac edited him like as if he was in an old Spencer Tracey noir movie, investigating the kidnapping of this dolphin. I'd never really seen a film actor doing that. He went to such a bizarre, surreal place. It was such a stimulating performance by Jim Carrey. I liked anarchic stuff when I was a kid like, say, Ace Ventura. Robert Sheehan in Love/Hate with Ruth Negga. You never know what they’ll throw at you. His spirit animal is a fox with Johnny Cash’s voice who guides him around. There’s an episode I watched probably more than any: Marge tries to keep it from Homer that there's a chili-cooking festival happening in Springfield. It has well-written characters in a domestic setting, a completely dysfunctional family, which makes you feel better about your own dysfunctional family. His delivery was the funniest, that’s what it came down to, and there was more tragedy to him. Looking back, and knowing a bit more about American television now, Chandler was like a more attractive George Costanza from Seinfeld – a neurotic with the heat turned down. My favourite was probably Chandler Bing, Matthew Perry’s character. She had six or seven tapes, all saying, “Do not tape over on pain of death”. My sister in particular was devoted to Friends.
In our house growing up, we always had lots of VHS tapes of Friends lying around.