Jonathan Pryce: I was told for years that I was worthless

This is a Global Player Original Podcast.

Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time than I'd ever get on the radio with interesting People. Jonathan Price, welcome. Interesting people and me. But we do know it's it's it's a mark of a few actors who bulk at that. grandiose introduction and people from other professions tend not to, but we may explore some of that a little bit later in the programme.

Hiding hiding my vanity. Yes, exactly that. Exactly that. Although as we will discover shortly as we work our way through your childhood, you you didn't display the show off gene

very early. Um a small North Wales village was was home. Was was the sort of context into which you were born. Um was your dad a minor when you were a baby or had he already taken over the Great Basketball? Oh he was my I was uh a late child Um so my father um went down the mines when he was thirteen, fourteen, born in nineteen oh five.

um and rescued by my mother who was the uh, daughter of a shopkeeper and they got married and together they owned and opened a a small greengrocers shopping uh near where we lived in a a vila another village called Brinkellin. Yeah. So uh when I

Yeah, he was a shopkeeper. That's all I I knew him as. It it feels like an escape that almost for him. I mean because the life was brutal. Yeah. And everybody else would have carried on, all the people he grew up with, all of the Yeah. Yeah, he th he bore all the scars, uh the classic scars of a uh coal miner of those days and that uh remember there was a

David Mercer play, um, where David Mercer described his father described his mother as having hair so long she could sit on it, which is what my mother apparently had, and that his father, who was an ex minor, still carried the bruises on his back from a pitfall and my father had blue bruises on his back all his life. It's weird. Omnipresent was was was the mine or the mining industry for the whole community and you in particular. Or was it not?

No. So you w you weren't one of those people who grew up in its metaphorical and physical shadow. No, no. and uh shot and steel works. We had the wool mill and the paper mill And then uh farming. And which of those would you have been expected to go into? If any? None of them. No, because your mother had all Nobody had any expectations for any of us. which was ostensibly a working class family. Um although shopkeeper class is I think it's weird. Aspirational working class um

it was a time when and the and the kind of parents I had that they they didn't have expectations or ambitions. They just and and neither did I really. And i it was a time when uh You thought y whatever happened, you'd always have a job. Whatever it was. Um there weren't huge unemployment rates. Then when I was a teenager So you'd you'd be able to put food on the table, pay your rent. Yeah, somehow.

So I went to art school. At what in order to pursue putting food on the table. A form of rebellion really in that kind of background. Um but let's not jump ahead. You're the youngest of three. Yeah. I think but a big gap Or or not? No, they were. My elder sister is uh Kathleen is ninety-two. And my sister Margaret For uh told everyone for years that she was my twin sister.

But she's actually about six or seven years older than me. Um and they both uh still live in North Wales. And and uh w does that mean you were spoiled growing up with two big sisters? We we c coddled and cossited quite a bit. I don't know about I w I was spoiled. Yes. Yeah. I was the you know, I was the only boy and I was late my mother was f I think forty four when she had me. And uh I was told that I was uh A cure for depression for her.

Well that well I was about to say that's simultaneously lovely, but also quite daunting. Yeah, well I didn't know it as a child. Of course. But subsequently it's been explained to you. Did you work? I think yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. We were very close the two of us because you know, for a long time there was just me and her at home. Um yeah, my elder sister had uh Yeah, she left home to be a nurse in Liverpool.

I read that your father, and sometimes these little nuggets of information turn out not to be true when I'm actually presenting them to the subject of the nugget, but I read that your father... was perhaps uncommonly generous towards some of the customers in the shop and would often let them buy stuff on credit that wasn't necessarily wise financially. It wasn't wise. Um

It it culminated in him having uh well, I didn't say entirely to blame for him giving credit to people. Um It was it was not uncommon for a small shopkeeper to extend credit to people, uh, in the hope that they would pay them back at the end of the week. Um, but he got into terrible debt and and in nineteen well it was we say terrible. I know the figure. He owed in nineteen fifty eight he owed a hundred pounds to a wholesaler's, Martin and Griffith.

and they refused to do a deal and um he had a nervous breakdown and he he left home um I was eleven at the time. Left home and uh got a bus, which he never did. He had he had a van that he drove everywhere. got a bus and I we think he w went looking for my eldest sister and uh anyway had a nervous breakdown and um was hospitalised for a while and was a huge

turning point in his life and all our lives really. He was wasn't allowed to um to go back and work in the shop. They've said it'd be too stressful for him. So we got a job in Cortals and uh he was an electrician's mate, um, twenty pounds a week. And uh it was quite a um It w I I f I felt terrible for him for years because he'd um

it was it wasn't high status, but he did have a status in the in the town. Um he was a local counselor. He was uh one of the people in charge of l uh local housing. And um And this is not to put down every other electrician's mate in the world, but it was uh it was a bit of you know, he'd always been his ever since leaving the mines, anyway, he'd been his own man, you know, s and uh

It was it was it was hard for him, I think. Although He was a very uh he got on with people all the time, he was very sociable, very well liked. So you wouldn't have suffered doing that job. He he wouldn't have carried it like a sort of mark of cane or anything. No. Just me. Wha wha and and well I was gonna ask how conscious were you of that at eleven? We w did you feel that your status had slipped a bit or not? No, I didn't know. I wasn't sure. Yeah, yeah.

Um j m more to do with him really. Um I uh and it wa it was hard then he was um uh say he was hospitalized, he was sectioned and it was he was in uh the Denby Mental Hospital, which at the time was it was a like a a Victorian workhouse had been converted to a psychiatric hospital. And um I went to see him. I um he asked for me to go and see him. And I went with my mother in the the local taxi took us all the way to Denby and we're driving up to this very imposing building.

And um, going through the first door, then the second door, third door, these series of doors, lock doors, looking into rooms and all I could see was men in rooms. I got to my father's ward and there were it was like a wartime thing. There were Three one, two, three rows of beds, two rows head to head. My father's win a was in a row of beds.

by the window. No need to be in bed at all. He had uh psychiatric problems. Um And uh remember standing next to his bed, looking looking out the window, again at what seemed like hundreds of men, but probably about fifty, walking round and round this circular courtyard. And uh w notice one guy getting to a p certain position and maybe he'd stop and he'd salute and then carry on. I think the majority of them were uh suffering trauma, uh Second World War. Uh and um it was

Yeah, I I w obviously will never forget it. It was traumatic for me to be there. I was very happy to see my father. Yeah. Um, and I remember a nurse a male nurse coming and saying, uh, how what a nice man my father was, and how he shouldn't be here. He should be at home. And uh eventually you did come home and it was uh but it was a a kind of a Turning point for him, definitely.

Don't know why I'm talking about it. But there you go. Well, uh because it I I guess it the the impression doesn't go away, does it? That that it made upon you and and given I don't think your father was a demonstrative man. I don't think you were raised in a demonstrative era and so probably what you felt that day went a lot deeper than much of what you were sort of encouraged to feel in friendly scenarios. And and and and so

Your mother or your father wanting you to do better than they had done in life. This is what you mean by they were a variety of jobs. I didn't get home from school and say they'd say you know you've got to get on with your studies and similarly given what was going on with your dad th th i i even if they'd felt that way, it would have ceased to be a priority during this period of your life because suddenly they're dealing and you're dealing with

the really big stuff. So I'm intrigued as to I th well, two things really, in a village like yours. It would be school and chapel, I presume, that were your introduction to um A bigger canvas, a bigger stage. Chapel played a big role, did it? Uh not too big. No. I went to Sunday school for as long as I had to. Um and uh we would occasionally go to chapel. My mother would have gone earlier on before I think she um it became it was a Presbyterian chapel and it Altered completely when a huge

contingent from the chapel went to London to see Billy Graham. Right. And they came back and they were converted and they were now evangelical Christians. So the whole nature of the chapel changed and you'd go there on a Sunday night and it was all to do with uh bearing witness and holding your hands up and uh

That's I I didn't go up not much after that. I find it quite entertaining. Yes, but not in not not transporting. No, no, no. Um so what about school then? I'm trying to picture young Jonathan and and and um Or young John as you were. Yeah. I think there. I still am John at home. Right. And price with an eye because of that old equity thing about there already being

So w what w what were you like at school? What did you did you did you enjoy school? Did you flourish at school? Uh no. Uh neither of those? No, I enjoyed school but I didn't flourish. Um and that was uh my own uh I brought it upon myself. I I wasn't the I went to the I passed my eleven plus plus plus uh the nose lad. My ooze and my um get my bile sounds right. Um went to the Hollywell Grammar School.

Um which uh the first couple of years w was fine. And then I realized that uh it was more fun not working. Um I was Not constantly, but often thrown out of class for lurking about. Um I developed the fine art of uh with a mirror, uh, following the teacher's handwriting on the board, with that mirror reflecting his hand. And they were

Uh I find it funny anyway. I said the rest of the class. And uh I I'd get thrown out. And the s the architecture of the school was it was round a uh quadrangle and Every morning at a certain time the headmaster Sidney Davis would make his rounds and uh I was standing up I'd be standing outside the class and he'd say, Price got in my room and I would then have to stand outside his room for an hour or whatever however long it took before he was ready. Um

The rest of the school would during breaks would parade past me and point at me and laugh and then Did you enjoy that? Did you like being the clown? Um I said I suppose I must have done. Yeah. I mean the downside was he'd get me in his room.

and uh then verbally abuse me for as long as he felt like it, um, telling me what a disgrace I was to my mother, da da da da da da um And I remember one day he eventually he'd circle me like a Gestapo officer and one day he ran out of uh things to say to me and finally ended up saying, You you bottle of skinless pork sausages I was like I uh I didn't laugh, otherwise he'd have caned me or something, but uh Well I'm so if I do jump uh non chronologically

jumped to a few years later when he he not allowed me to return to school to go to the sixth form. Right. Um banned me from uh setting foot on the premises of the school'cause I wanted to go and talk to my art teacher, Iva Jones, who I admired greatly. Um Well, when I be I became an actor and I was at Stratford, uh and I done a matinee of uh Anthony and Cleopatra.

And I got a call from the stage door saying there was a Mr Sidney Davis there to see me. Would I come down to see him? And I said, No. Oh. Send him to my room. So and that was uh and then this old man came in and uh just lied to my face. saying he'd uh was proud of me and he'd always knew I'd make it and I was No you didn't. You told me I was worthless for years. A bottle of skinless sausages.

But I di I didn't I just thanked him and thanked him for coming and, you know, that was it. I didn't wanna say No. Well you weren't nursing by the sounds of it any particular resentment. No, I d he'd probably spurred me to decided to exclude you from school. Yeah.

I mean he did me a favor, he s I didn't go bit to the sixth woman, instead went to the local art school where I was for two years and had a um a really good time with uh really uh fun fellow students, um good teachers. Um And it was at the time of the Beatles and the Liverpool scene.

So I and you were in Lancashire, Edge Hill, so Well before that, but when I was at uh at the local art school we would go over to Liverpool to the either a lunchtime session at the cavern or whatever. So you were you you were Yeah, we do we go to Liverpool three or four of us and we we had Uh as art students we had what was then deemed to be long hair. Yes. And uh Girls, Liverpool girls would come up to it and say, Hey, you you're a group?

And you go Yeah. Oh yeah. Jonathan? Were you John? Were you were you think uh art college would lead to something or were you just as in as in Paint and I think it's a good idea. I'd r I'd have got a job as a graphic designer. That was would have been the plan. Um that was where the employment was. Um and it was a time of uh pop art and all that kind of stuff. So it was uh that graphic design was accessible. Um and then I

sent my folder away to do um the what would be a cand equivalent of degree course. Um Or the diploma course it would have been then. And I my f folder came back with saying they liked my work but I didn't have enough O levels. Mm. Uh that being the irony, um I eventually had enough O levels to train to teach it, but I didn't have enough oil levels to do it.

As they changed the rules from when I was sixteen to a eighteen, th they changed the rules to you had to have O levels. Oh, okay. So I stayed on or I part time I did an A level. and um in art and Then at the time I thought I've just got to go to a college I just want to go to college, if and I'm not gonna get into art school. Um so I applied to teacher training college. Right. Uh to do art and uh went to Edgehill, Ormsco.

um where you had to do a subsidiary course and I was told the easiest course to do that required the least amount of work was the drama course. And that appealed to me. the least amount of work I mean. And uh signed up for that. Had there be I mean, you'd done stuff before, had you? You don't I don't no. I'd done I'd never had any ambitions to be an actor and the th that was an absolutely another world.

Um and uh but I'd always enjoyed mucking about uh entertaining people. Um I'd done a small part in the school play. I remember my my very first part was in the uh infant school when I would have been seven or less, and it was a play called The Uh the fairy pot of gold or something. And I was an elf. Uh my mother had made my costume in this kind of shot satin stuff and cut the edge all wavy. And uh during rehearsals I had a line and it was uh cum brothers fruit is coal.

So I did the line as well as I thought I was doing it come brothers for it is cold. And the teacher took the line away from him. If I'd had the the you know the uh the language I would have said, fuck you. But uh I all I remember was being incredibly disappointed. Uh And they gave the line to somebody else.

Uh and this is where some of my acting ambition must have uh started. I remember thinking, I should have been the king. Do you really? Yeah. Never mind the bloody fairy, never mind the elf. I should have been the king. And Melvin Evans, if you I don't suppose you'll ever hear this. I hope you don't. Uh he was the he was playing the king and he was I don't know w what it was like when you were a kid, but there were lots of kids who had two

Candles of snot down their nose permanently. And Melvin was one of those. And I thought he can't play the king for those snotty nose.

So that was uh seventy years ago and I've have not forgotten. Nor should you, seriously. These are the things that get us out of bed in the morning. Yeah. What um just just to clarify, would you have felt If you were playing football that you should have been the centre forward or was there something specific to acting do you think that you felt that you felt stirring in this moment? Um Well, it was just having the most important role.

So when you when you took roles it that means small roles in plays later, you didn't feel your anything shifting. There are no small roles. It's true. I was inc incredibly lucky that um When I was at tea teacher training I'd a b uh a great man, Jerry Dawson, who ran Unity Theatre in Liverpool, and uh uh another tutor, Beryl Smith. And while I was there I did work with UNC theatre.

and I did a play uh down the road at Kirby College, a girls college that had put a sign up in the my college saying that men wanted for the production. And I got a part and their their tutor, a man called William Murray, had been an actor and after he saw the performance he said to me, Have you ever thought of being an actor? Wow. And I said, No and he said well I Why should I? And he said, Well I think you should. And I think you should go to Rada, uh, where he'd been.

And so I was like, all right. So he sent off the uh papers and he coached me through two audition speeches. And uh Rada gave me a place under scholarship, so I went there. C c can you remember what the audition pieces were? Yeah, the one was from uh little Malcolm and his struggle against the eunuchs and the other was

launch from two gentlemen of Verona with the uh imaginary dog was talking to. Yeah, but the but what we were saying about the the small parts thing and I d uh it's not bragging, but I um Rather, uh, my final show N not my final show, my final year. We were doing Oklahoma. Right. And I was playing uh one of the poor Judd is dead uh barbershop quartet and Tony Haynes who became a great friend and uh w was the musical director. And

He'd written the music for Caucasian Chalk Circle, which was his next production to be done at the Everyman in Liverpool. Okay. And he wanted somebody who could sing the uh high tenor role of the narrator. And he told Alan Dosser about me. And Alan Dossa came to see my final show at Rada. and uh It's the director of the Everyman. Yeah, and left at the i interval

But um he couldn't miss me'cause a pla a play I chosen to do, you could chove you know and it was Ride a Cockhorse by David Mercer in which it was one man and about four women. So he couldn't miss me. Anyway, he left at the interval but he left a note at the stage door saying there's a job for you at the Everyman if you want it. So I started at the Ebryman and there with uh in the early seventy two I went straight from Radhus to the Ebryman. And

Uh going to play the narrator in Chalk Circle and I I played elbow in Measure for Measure. That was the small part. But because of the repertory system you would play as cast. I stayed there for initially for two years and I was playing Richard III, uh Edgar Rin Lear, um a number of new plays written by John McGrath. We were very it was a very political theatre that occasioned occasionally did classics. So uh John McGraw Adrian Mitchell wrote for his

And uh Chris Bond. A very fertile place to be then. Very exciting place to be. Let's rewind a little bit because I'd want to know what your mum and dad thought when you announced your intention to go to Rada and to I mean.

I may I put this very diplomatically. I mean d g being an art teacher more by accident than design was not a sort of mighty ambition that you were now surrendering upon the altar of your act. Well to be a teacher as a then would have been Oh that would have been a pretty damn good, yeah.

Um but they didn't try and talk you out of it or wonder what on earth had happened to you or anything like that. No. There's security in teaching. There's no security necessarily in acting. I don't know. It was uh It wa it was it wasn't the same world as it is now. No, I guess not. It was there was a lot more employment about a lot more theatres open. And what um I think that might answer my next question actually. So just that

A pla uh an in I mean did you feel something acting that you didn't feel doing anything else? Did you ever have or haven't h heard you say anything about a sort of moment of knowing that this is what you were put on this earth to do or anything else? No, that's only happened re only happened recently. Um What do you mean it's only happened recently? Well the the idea that yeah, this I'm I'm good at this. Right. Really? Um Yeah, yes you have s self doubt for get to

seventy plus you th if you've still got self doubt you're you're doing something wrong. Uh no I'm I'm I know I'm okay now. Um And uh I th I remember things like when when I was uh arts when I was painting, especially b uh at the first art school I was at, um I was I was okay. I was I was I was okay. Right. But I was very self critical and would look at some of my contemporaries' work. and think it was so much better than mine.

Um there's a a guy, if you're listening, David Goodyear, whose drawing I always admired and always wanted to draw like him. And I I can I can draw better than I can paint. But I was always kinda dissatisfied with it. And then I realized that uh there was the realisation that more people were saying they liked my acting than ever said they liked my painting. Okay. So I thought, hmm, there must be something in this and you didn't have 'Cause you worked, I mean, quite early doors.

There would have been people at the Everyman, I think Anthony Sher was probably a contemporary of yours, was he? And We were uh together, yeah. So you didn't have there wasn't a David Goodyear of the acting. There weren't actors that you looked at and thought, Oh bloody hell, I'm wasting my time doing this, I'll never be as good as them.

Oh there you go. You see. She did know you were good. It's not before you were seventy. Yeah, but it it was become people were telling me I was good and I was getting roles that I wouldn't have got if I hadn't been any good. Yeah. Yeah. Um and Alan Dotter was uh a a brilliant uh i he's dead now sadly, but he was a a brilliant uh company director and um Yeah. I mean it it's set up a whole

I mean if uh st it was it became one thing after another and one thing would lead to another. And so working with Alan um Richard Eyre came to direct at the Everyman and then he took over the Nottingham Playhouse. Yep. So I went to work with him at Nottingham. Um then went back to the Everyman where I company because the main company had left to come to London to do the Beatles show. Right. So they wanted a caretaker director.

So that's when I formed this company that was comprised of uh Bill Nye and Julie Walters and Pete Postlethwaite, Matthew Kelly, Gosh, Kate Farhe. Um uh Kevin Lloyd, uh Nick Waddison, Uncle Tom Cobley, and all a great group of actors. I gave uh It's not bad. Bill Nye's second job. Um they've done all right. So do they do they thank me? Do they call it No No Nothing Nothing

That's your second greatest claim to find from this era,'cause I think you're you're you're paint you painted the dressing rooms, didn't you? Or you you were responsible. My dressing room. Yes. I was in a cupboard. Didn't get touched again for decades. Yeah. Um Okay, so there's a bit of tension here between A a a a prodigious talent because they wouldn't have let you

be the artistic director at the age of twenty seven unless you were displaying something a little bit out of the ordinary. Or paint my dressing room if they didn't know I was gonna stay. You've always got to have something to fall back on, haven't you? You knew that time at art school wouldn't be wasted. Um

But they must have y you know, so so you're you're you're self effacing nature notwithstanding. If you if you're in the position to hire people like B Bill Nye and Pete Posselthwaite and Kate Far, who you went on to marry, um You must have known that you were probably all right. I d I mean I d I don't maybe you're right it's generational,'cause I'm

My early fifties I've got a lot of friends who who went into acting. Some of them s stuck the course, some of them didn't. But for for that generation It was constantly fraught and frightening and and uh c unemployment was co a constant spectre. For this first period of your career that doesn't seem to have been the case at all, no, no. Um and it I as

said earlier there w there was employment. Yeah. Uh in every major town and not so major town there was a a repertory theatre. Um And I d didn't have I had ambitions within the You know, the the area where I was working and it was all I w I all I wanted to do was theatre. And th then like for a lot of people you did television to make money to pay for

theatre and film was what other people did. It was an the film was another world. Although it was it was it was waiting in the wings or or wait waiting on the horizon. Um I I I so y I like this. I mean the the sort of sense that you were sort of living.

r a really nice and happy and fulfilling life as an actor. People perhaps younger people listening to this might be a little surprised by what rep represented,'cause you ran through the sort of classics of the canon, but you might also have found yourself, I think you did

doing the strangest of double bills. I read that when you were doing Leah, you're doing Edgar and Winnie the Pooh at the same time. Yeah. Playing Owl. And also so giving them your Edgar on a Monday and your Owl on a Tuesday. No, no, the same day. But was it really on the space? Owl in the afternoon and uh Edgar at night, on the same set. And this is when Anthony Shaw was doing Christopher Robin and and the fool on the on the I mean that is almost impossible to

imagine as a as a as a grounding. So it was impossible to imagine then. You'd get I mean this incredibly middle class piece of work um at Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. And we get truckloads of Liverpool uh school kids in who'd no r relationship with Winnie the Pooh at all. And uh we'd be plugging away there and they'd they'd just start talking and mucking about And Uh a couple of things. I came on I came on as owl.

And uh with a long owl costume on and flapping my wings and saying to Tony Sher, Hello Pooh, hello Christopher Robin, hello owl, hello owl and uh the kids and I go Cut, cut, cut. Goodbye, Christopher. Just fuck off. And uh and Alan Ford. Do you know Alan Ford? Uh was uh He does a l a lot of sort of uh he's a r a really good actor, but he plays a lot of uh East Ender characters. Um he was playing Eeyore and he'd come on stage, he'd go, Eeyore E Bloody Or.

And he'd jump off the stage and say, Who wants to ride on Leo's back then? And he'd take kids round the theater while we waited. For him to get on with his lines, to come back and carry on with the play. No, I sense that. Um and and speaking of Liverpool uh uh skil school children, Willie Russell would write for the Everyman Alan Bleesdale would be in the uh in the sort of early years of his career. So it was a

It was a m it was a magical time. And then I don't I mean, I don't sense well, I know'cause you've already told me that you weren't yearning for some n new gear or some breakthrough or anything like that. But when Richard Eyre came up to direct

Comedians, th the the Trevor Griffiths play, that that was written with you in mind, I think. The part w of Gethin was written for you. It was written for the company at Nottingham, of which he was then a member of the company at Not so you'd followed him to and that

was probably a bit of a game changer for you. Yeah, absolute game changer. Right. Yeah. And did you know that immediately almost or? Well I I knew the play was uh incredible and important and uh I I had no n thought of nothing beyond that and we uh came to London with it. It was at a time when Peter Hall was inviting um the regions to bring their theatre to London. And I think we were the only one. I think he stopped that plan afterwards. Um and It was great. It was an absolutely wonderful play.

I left it. Uh Ken Cranham took over from me, did it in the West End. And I have to check with people when they say, Oh, I thought you were wonderful in comedians. Uh, where did you see it? And just check. Oh. And I'd think that was Ken, but I wouldn't tell him. Um And then I was uh offered my first film, uh, Voyage of the Damned. which was uh an extraordinary experience. Uh won't spend too much time talking about it was uh

That was i incredible. It was a it was a Lou Grade production when he was spending millions, what were then millions, on these large scale productions. And it was a story of a uh a ship which was allowed to leave Germany before the outbreak of war, uh, with a true story with a thousand Jews. And it was never allowed to land. It was rejected from including Britain rejected it.

And it ended up back at uh Antwerp uh the I was playing a character called Joseph Manasseh, a r a real person, who had been released from a concentration camp and then was uh I learnt had was rounded up and ended his life in a concentration camp again. Um but it was It it's like the the walk down of people getting on the ship.

was uh it was like Murder on the Orient Express. It was uh Faye Dunaway and Oscar Berner and uh all these great stars of the day, Malcolm McDowell. Um Orson Wells was in it, I didn't meet him, but uh James the Mason.

Um What were you like? We we we were you like a d did you face up to the sweet shop window at this kind of scenario or or were you thinking this is my future or I want something? No th that that kind of wasn't No, it was uh uh, sailing off Barcelona doing all the kind of location shipwork. Um and Depending how high up the cast list you were.

Um if you're high up you'd be called specifically to do your scenes. Right. If you were me, um you were called every day to you'd get on the ship and then they'd jump to your scene whenever. And there was so we would go out I was what, twenty eight or something, twenty seven twenty eight. We'd go out on the town in Barcelona. drinking, carousing, um and uh then go to the get on bo on the ship and set sail and go to your cabin and sleep it off.

And I remember getting on the ship this one particular day and had uh the worst headache and hangover imaginable. Went to my cabin, put my head on the pillow, it was going jum jum jum jum. and inevitably the knock came on the door said, Jonathan, we're gonna do your scene now And I was like, No Um On the other hand it really played into my character because I was the

half starved figure from a concentration camp. Um not be too light hearted about it. Um but I could I was on deck with the other guy, the American actor who was playing also a a a a camp victim. Um and I could barely speak. And we finished the scene and Stuart Rosenberg, the director who was uh he directed Cool Han Luke and all these other things, came up to me. He was quite a short man. And he put his hand on my shoulder, he looked me in the eye and he said You are some motherfucker.

And my praise doesn't go any higher than that. And I was like This is a good thing. Thanks. And uh the other actor, uh Paul Coslo, um he was He was method. Right. We were staying at the Ritz and he would either sleep in the corridor outside his room on the floor or walk the streets of Barcelona at night. And uh

Anyway, little did he know, all he had to do was get was come out drinking with us before and turn up for work the next day. To all the young aspiring actors, this is not a lesson. Or maybe it is.

So we're we're entering the period now mid mid mid to late seventies around which d y your your people will be more familiar with this. Well comedians went to Broadway. Quite something. So that's not just opening doors, that's that's knocking down doors you didn't even know existed previously. And I had the option of uh my I was with William Morris then and they I said you have to go to LA and do take the meetings.

And uh I duly went, Kate and I went together and uh did the meet the couple of meetings. It was Terrible. People had no idea who you were, what you were, what you um, I remember the guy he was they were casting a new version of The Laughing. Right. Remember that? There's this guy called uh George Slaughter. And I went to his office and it was it was exactly the kind of guy an office

that you would think would direct or produce the laugh in. It had inflatable cows, inflatable udders, it had all this junk in the room. And he asked me what I'd been doing and I said I'd I'd done this uh played directed by now directed by Mike Nichols for Broadway. and explaining to him comedians that I'd be I was this uh working class uh guy who uh did this act where I uh borrowed w stuff from Grok

Or I made the audience laugh with my violin and then I smashed the violin. And it was all about the repression of the working classes and Just lazed over told me all kinds of junk. And then uh he kind of towards the end of of the interview, the meeting He uh remembered that uh I had worked for Mike Nichols. Right. So he covered his bases, you know. The didn't want to mess about with Mike Nichols. So he was very charming to me.

Um but it no it was terrible. I went to another meeting where they said, Oh great Walter Hill was casting the driver and I went for a meeting and they said, Oh great, you're exactly what Walter is looking for. And I was like, Well, yeah, sure. And I s foolishly said, Um what is that? And they said, Tall and thin. Okay. So anyway, Kate and I got the next plane out and uh I went to work at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I didn't season there. So you didn't have a lot, right? I mean this was

Easy come, easy go. I mean the money would be nice, but in terms of the work like that. And then it was a time when you know I I wasn't that established. Uh but uh my friend uh John Lithgow, who I'd was in comedians with me, uh, in New York and then left and then uh at this time I saw him in LA and I went to a couple of openings and things and you saw the people who would have been your competition and I thought I'm not starting at the bottom here.

And I m I remember seeing Roy Shider. Yeah. And the people of that era No. So I came home and uh as I say went to the RSC and then uh did a season there and uh then did Hamlet with uh Richard. Which was huge. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it was uh it was a seminal production and a seminal performance.

Dr drawing, I think, upon upon the loss of your father in real life a couple of years a few years previously. Yeah. Which you were very open about, or at least you have discussed in the in the past. Yeah, I've talked about it a lot. It it did um uh it was a way of acknowledging uh his death. I hadn't um he he was attacked by a young man and um He kinda survived that but then had a series of strokes. Um and it was at the time I was Liverpool and then went over to the time I was doing comedians.

And um I remember he uh he came with my mother and I yeah, my elder sister and Jimmy, her husband, and they came to see comedians and then we went to the restaurant in the theater afterwards. Um my dad didn't say much anyway, uh, ever really, but he uh uh he was staring at me and um This was that like he was in mid recovery and uh Um they went h back to Wales and I was talking to my mother on the phone and I said, What did Dada say?

And uh she said that he'd said he wished he'd been able to talk to me the way the teacher talked to me in the play. And uh this was extraordinary and then I thought, Oh god, well we can build a lot of bridges between us here'cause I'd been this sort of stroppy teenager with him. And um anyway then Next day he had another stroke and he never spoke again. So we never had that conversation, ever.

Um, and then I went to New York and I would have uh I'd phone my mother and She put my dad on the phone and he would make the odd noise and I would uh I would just tell him We'd have a one sided conversation. I would tell him everything that was going on and what was happening and stuff. And then he died, uh not long before opening night, so I I couldn't come home.

But in some ways that was I mean, selfishly, uh I I w I would have been a help for my mother and my sisters, I know, but for me, um It meant it was j it was just Kate and I went to uh we went to Saint Patrick's Cathedral at the same time as the funeral was happening in Wales and And every time I'm back in New York I go back to the cathedral and have a it's a beautiful place and have a bit of a sit and a think.

A moment of communion, as it were. Um came, uh, Richard asked me to do it and there w it was a lot of conversations taking place about I I felt like I could do it, I had a reason for doing it. My father died and things felt right about my doing it. No, we had to f we were talking about finding a way of making the the ghost of Hamlet's father as frightening uh for a contemporary audience as it would have been for a Elizabethan audience.

and the exorcist was about at the I'd been about at that time and we referenced that and then talking more about it and then I'd been thinking about my father and then I'd'cause I'd seen my father uh after he died, I'd I thought I'd seen him standing in the garden looking at me. And I thought I must have uh conjured him up'cause I wanted to see him.

And so uh thinking about Hamlet wanting to see his father and having guilt about not having done anything about his death, even though Hamlet knew all the facts, as it were, thought he knew. So we put together the idea that he was conjuring up the ghost. He knew everything the ghost would have said to him had he had there been a ghost, and also put it into the context of being uh an extraordinarily frightening image or a disturbing image. So I spoke the lines of uh my father

um as if that I w in a fit of possession by the spirit and ghost of my father. And I watched um videos of uh essentially women speaking in tongues, voodoo and all that stuff. And um yeah, it became it it became very valid way of of doing it. Was it therapeutic? Yeah. Huge. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm I d you know, you don't I didn't sit there thinking No, of course not. It's uh over the years it it's it obviously was. Yeah. Yeah. It occurs to me that it's not a good idea.

That we haven't really, thus far, established how seriously you take acting. But that was an exercise in taking acting very, very seriously. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, it was. Um and the it's horses for courses are things you take more seriously than others. Um uh, you know, you get st the roles I played in Shakespeare th the um that you can take really seriously. Um I had a very clown like, wonderful approach to taming the shrew, but Macbeth and Lear especially were, you know, um

You take very seriously. You know the way you think about them. You've you've um presumably played All the parts you wanted to play as as as you sort of surveyed the canon as a younger actor thought. Like to have had it go up, but um uh timing wasn't right or you know, or nobody asked me to do them. Um bastards.

Life could have been so different. Well, I think life's been all right. And now now we come to that we mentioned earlier that Hollywood was waiting in the wings. I I love the story and I hope it's true and not apocryphal that it was your role in something wicked this way comes that via Robert De Niro clinched your um another breakthrough role for want of a better word, um playing Sam Lowry in Brazil. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um

Terry had wa w very much wanted me to do the role. Um Arnold Milchin, the producer, very much didn't want me. He i it was anybody but me. Really? Yeah. I could name the names but I won't of the people. I won't give'em the satisfaction. Um but uh yeah, so It looked as if it wasn't gonna happen. and then um Terry said, uh Arnon's in town, w he wants to meet you. Um um and we went to the St James's Hotel, I think it was. And uh

The meeting was going uh not well at all. And uh Arnold Milchin was giving me all the reasons why I shouldn't be playing Sam Lowry. And I thought, this isn't gonna happen. And then the far end of the hotel suite seemed a long way, it was a big suite, uh, De Niro came out of the door uh with his son Raphael, who was probably about eight or s maybe about that, and they came to say hello. And uh the nearer said hello and um He said to his son, Do you know who this is?

Uh and he said no, he said, This is Mr Dark. And his son looked at me and with it horror and went and hid behind his dad's legs and wouldn't come out. And uh anyway th so that was it we talked a bit more and stuff and uh De Niro said how much he'd like something wicked and he goes off and and then uh I said to instead of shutting up, I said to Milcham, Yeah, if you did you see something wicked? Uh, do you see me play Mr Doc? He said, No. I so I said, Well if you'd if you'd seen

something wicked, you uh you certainly wouldn't cast me as Sam. And he said, Jonathan, you're sitting here before me now and I still wouldn't cast you as Sam. So I said, This is terrible. Um, I'm gonna go. Uh nice to met you. Thanks for the you know. Um went home. And uh it wasn't mobile phone time. And I'm sitting at home getting quite depressed about it and then the phone rings and it was Terry.

And he said, It's only doing it. Wow. I said, What do you mean I'm doing? He he said he doesn't want me to do it, he didn't like me and he said, No, no, no. I said, uh Bobby's impressed by you. God. And if Bobby's impressed by you, then Arnon is. So uh yeah, I owe Bobby. the remainder of my career. W wh why did you want that part so badly? Well it was it's just wonderful. Well of course. Yeah. Uh I uh the script um was just great. Um I liked Terry.

He'd already he'd often me a part in um Time Bandit. just after I'd finished playing Hamlet. Right. And I was broke. I had no money. And uh I was at the same time I was offered a film called Loophole. And uh loophole was offering at least twice as much money as Time Bandits was. So I Your kids need shoes. I um stupidly

Took uh loophole. But if I'd done time bandits he might not have offered me Brazil. No, of course not. And um I uh d we're we're we're running out of time now, so that'd be just edited highlights, isn't it really? But uh And again, depending on the age of people listening, I can always come back. Well, y I you know, you shouldn't jest like that. You've been more than welcome. But m Miss Saigon stood out for me a little bit when I was running through.

the the life but of course knowing that Oklahoma was such a breakthrough role for you at Radha I didn't um I shouldn't have been surprised by that and you've been a bond villain, the two popes, one of my younger colleagues here was more excited about that than perhaps anything

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feel pretty good about things. I do. I feel it's I mean it's I mean it's overused but I've been blessed. But it's uh uh good things have happened. And you've had this lovely Bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd y bydd

Stretching your legs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you look for anything in particular in roles now or or do you Well what I've always really looked the script is important if it if the script has definitely has something to say. If it has something to say politically, all the all the better. Um but it's usually not repeating myself, not doing not doing what people expect me to do or w wanna cast me for. And and not and never I mean throughout your career you you've you've moved, you've made

Zigzags, haven't you, that may not have been necessarily on paper the wisest things to do. But probably Miss Saigon most obviously, get deciding to create the role of the engineer. You know, no snobbery about T V, going back to T V, doing box sets now and the and the Game of Thrones and slow horses and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, well it's um as I've always had this uh feeling that it's um you know and going back to where I come from it's a job. It is my job. And I don't I don't have any

I mean I'm I'm one of the most confident people you can meet as far as my job is concerned. Yes. But it is my job. Right. Which is a healthy probably keeps you sane in a way, that approach. Not you personally. Keep one keep one say that. Otherwise the disappointments would be too much to bear and the And they well I have I've had disappointments. I'm sure regrets. I've had a few.

Speaking of where you came from, you're back in Wales for the for the new show for The Salt Bush for Sky. Tell us a bit about Solomon Bevan. Well he's um when I got the script and I the the description of the character was uh uh quite vivid, uh enters the the pub uh with a a herd of sheep and he's uh a tall, impressive um farmer who is the patriarch uh everyone respects. And I thought, I can't do this. Tall and thin though, that's your speciality. Not so thin anymore. Not so tall either.

Um and I s I remember saying to Claire Oakley who wrote and directed it uh really, really well, um I can't do this, but I'll be my version. And of course what I I w I was just afraid because you're the uh you know, the expectancy is you're going to be impressive. And Yeah, everyone knows this. other people react to you and how other people give you status.

You know, um, how do you know a king has walked in the room? You know. And that you discover that when uh you do the crown, you know, Prince Philip and the Queen walking in the room. Ah, which is a little reminder of how much of your career we haven't talked about. Yeah. But we will we final question, will we see you on stage again? Um I'm I'm looking for a role now, but the the it's the very uh firm conditions that uh I'm sitting down, I'm wearing a suit. I don't speak. I communicate entirely

Through m my eyes. Yeah. Um I I li I like to think I've got at least one more in me. Darling, I've got to. I owe it. I owe it to my public. Jonathan Pice, thank you. Oh thank you. It's been a real pleasure meeting you. I've I like your work very much. Thank you. Very kind. This has been a Global Player original production.