Doubt, cynicism, moral confusion ... Sam West has no trouble getting into the mood for his next role. He talks to Lyn Gardner
The media likes to portray actors as rather dim, decorative things. But all genuinely interesting actors bring a large dollop of intelligence to their roles. The great ones match brainpower with instinct: part of what they do is as mysterious to them as it is to us watching.
Watching Sam West play Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company last year, you caught a glimpse of that. West's Richard was a man too bright and aware to be the kind of king he was born to be. His tragedy was to discover that divine right is a prison. Only in death does he finally behave like a king. West made you understand the tragedy of that journey.
It was an astonishing performance, given that his previous Shakespearean experience amounted to playing Hal in Henry IV and Octavius in the National's derided Anthony and Cleopatra. His reward is now to get a crack at Hamlet, a man who you could say is too intelligent for his own good.
As the son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales, Sam West has acting in his blood, yet he fears he may be too naturally analytical to be an actor. "I have a talent; I don't think that I have a gift for it," he says. "Those that have a real gift are often unashamedly subjective in their approach. They are not interested in talking about The Cherry Orchard in general because as far as they are concerned the play is about Dunyasha or whoever it is they are playing. I admire that. But I am not like that at all. I take the view that doing your homework can't do any harm. I want to know everything about the world of the play."
It shows. When West arrives from rehearsals for Steven Pimlott's RSC production of Hamlet, he proceeds to give a dazzling masterclass. It is hard to get a word in as he dissects the play, quoting not just his own part but everyone else's, and throwing in little asides on 17th century Catholic and Protestant theological attitudes to revenge and redemption. Before long he is demolishing the critical Tower of Babel that surrounds the play and analysing some of the 20-odd productions that he has seen.
It sounds more like a director talking. West laughs, admits that he can get carried away and points out that he directed his own production of Hamlet for the RSC's fringe festival last summer. "In the absence of better solutions, I will be nicking some things from that," says West. He admits that it took him a while to adjust from directing the play to being in it. "I find myself thinking more and more like a director, and I know I have to watch that. You do have to make a choice. You can't be an actor and a director, especially not at the same time."
He is enjoying being part of the RSC, after what he admits were "too many years in TV limbo" playing damaged upper-class people in the Merchant Ivory mould. "In TV and film I am already considered old at 34, while in theatre it is possible to be at the start of a classical career, although I am wary of saying that. I love it that in the theatre you get employed because people think that you have the potential to play a role, whereas in TV and film they only cast you because they know that you can do it.
"A friend, the actor Leigh Lawson, said to me that the only time in his career when he didn't feel he should be somewhere else doing something else was when he was with the RSC. It has been like that for me. I find it moving that I've spent a year in a company of young actors speaking 400-year-old language with no apology and an almost revolutionary zeal. The zeitgeist is so much about not caring, about it being cool to mumble and be back footed. But you can't do that when you are speaking verse, and there is something that makes you feel happy to know that you are going out there and giving people pleasure." He pauses. "Small dollops of pleasure. The number of people who will have seen Richard II during its entire run is smaller than the Saturday afternoon gate at Cardiff City."
If West has one regret about doing Hamlet now, it is that we are living in a Hamlet age. "It must have been thrilling to have been David Warner and played Hamlet in a Lear age, a world where you've got something to kick against," he sighs. He is referring to the 1965 production that cast Warner as a spokesman for a generation that was challenging the entrenched views of its parents. But what exactly is a Hamlet age?
"A Tony Blair age," says West. "If Tony Blair isn't good casting for Claudius who smiles and smiles, who is? Oh yes, this is very much a Hamlet age. Doubts, cynicism, moral relativism, these are the norms now. It is hard to notice the bitterness in Denmark because there is so much sugar coating the pill. Hamlet is a character that exists in opposition, but it is hard to stand up to something that seems quite liberal. He is a man for our times because he distrusts himself. He is a worrier, not a warrior. Steven Pimlott described the play the other day as being like Gladiator with Woody Allen playing Russell Crowe. That's about the measure of it."
• Hamlet previews at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from Saturday. Box office: 01789 403403.
Watching Sam West play Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company last year, you caught a glimpse of that. West's Richard was a man too bright and aware to be the kind of king he was born to be. His tragedy was to discover that divine right is a prison. Only in death does he finally behave like a king. West made you understand the tragedy of that journey.
It was an astonishing performance, given that his previous Shakespearean experience amounted to playing Hal in Henry IV and Octavius in the National's derided Anthony and Cleopatra. His reward is now to get a crack at Hamlet, a man who you could say is too intelligent for his own good.
As the son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales, Sam West has acting in his blood, yet he fears he may be too naturally analytical to be an actor. "I have a talent; I don't think that I have a gift for it," he says. "Those that have a real gift are often unashamedly subjective in their approach. They are not interested in talking about The Cherry Orchard in general because as far as they are concerned the play is about Dunyasha or whoever it is they are playing. I admire that. But I am not like that at all. I take the view that doing your homework can't do any harm. I want to know everything about the world of the play."
It shows. When West arrives from rehearsals for Steven Pimlott's RSC production of Hamlet, he proceeds to give a dazzling masterclass. It is hard to get a word in as he dissects the play, quoting not just his own part but everyone else's, and throwing in little asides on 17th century Catholic and Protestant theological attitudes to revenge and redemption. Before long he is demolishing the critical Tower of Babel that surrounds the play and analysing some of the 20-odd productions that he has seen.
It sounds more like a director talking. West laughs, admits that he can get carried away and points out that he directed his own production of Hamlet for the RSC's fringe festival last summer. "In the absence of better solutions, I will be nicking some things from that," says West. He admits that it took him a while to adjust from directing the play to being in it. "I find myself thinking more and more like a director, and I know I have to watch that. You do have to make a choice. You can't be an actor and a director, especially not at the same time."
He is enjoying being part of the RSC, after what he admits were "too many years in TV limbo" playing damaged upper-class people in the Merchant Ivory mould. "In TV and film I am already considered old at 34, while in theatre it is possible to be at the start of a classical career, although I am wary of saying that. I love it that in the theatre you get employed because people think that you have the potential to play a role, whereas in TV and film they only cast you because they know that you can do it.
"A friend, the actor Leigh Lawson, said to me that the only time in his career when he didn't feel he should be somewhere else doing something else was when he was with the RSC. It has been like that for me. I find it moving that I've spent a year in a company of young actors speaking 400-year-old language with no apology and an almost revolutionary zeal. The zeitgeist is so much about not caring, about it being cool to mumble and be back footed. But you can't do that when you are speaking verse, and there is something that makes you feel happy to know that you are going out there and giving people pleasure." He pauses. "Small dollops of pleasure. The number of people who will have seen Richard II during its entire run is smaller than the Saturday afternoon gate at Cardiff City."
If West has one regret about doing Hamlet now, it is that we are living in a Hamlet age. "It must have been thrilling to have been David Warner and played Hamlet in a Lear age, a world where you've got something to kick against," he sighs. He is referring to the 1965 production that cast Warner as a spokesman for a generation that was challenging the entrenched views of its parents. But what exactly is a Hamlet age?
"A Tony Blair age," says West. "If Tony Blair isn't good casting for Claudius who smiles and smiles, who is? Oh yes, this is very much a Hamlet age. Doubts, cynicism, moral relativism, these are the norms now. It is hard to notice the bitterness in Denmark because there is so much sugar coating the pill. Hamlet is a character that exists in opposition, but it is hard to stand up to something that seems quite liberal. He is a man for our times because he distrusts himself. He is a worrier, not a warrior. Steven Pimlott described the play the other day as being like Gladiator with Woody Allen playing Russell Crowe. That's about the measure of it."
• Hamlet previews at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from Saturday. Box office: 01789 403403.
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