Source: What's
On Stage
02 December 2002
20 Questions With...Mark Bazeley
Actor Mark Bazeley - who's just been nominated for a Whatsonstage.com Best Supporting Actor award for Homebody/Kabul & Macbeth with Sean Bean - believes in grants for drama students & falling for co-stars but not in curses.
After early roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Glasgow Citizens' Theatre, actor Mark Bazeley found wider recognition in 1997 with English Touring Theatre's production of Chekhov's The Seagull.
His performance as the doomed Konstantin won him the Ian Charleson Award, a distinction - given to classical actors under the age of 30 - which he shares with the likes of Tom Hollander, Toby Stephens, Dominic West and Rupert Penry-Jones.
Now back in awards contention, Bazeley has just been shortlisted in the Best Supporting Actor category of Whatsonstage.com's own 2003 Theatregoer's Choice Awards for two London performances this year - as an opium-addicted British diplomat Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at the Young Vic and, currently at the Albery, as Macduff to Sean Bean's Macbeth.
Bazeley's other recent West End credits have included {Antarctica:: E8821002798864} and The Real Thing, while he's been seen on film and television in Trust, Where the Heart Is, Cazalet Chronicles, Hearts and Bones, Border Café, Midsomer Murders, Crust, Noah's Ark, and Feast of July.
Date & place of birth
Born 30 September 1970 in Wantage, Oxfordshire.
Trained at...
The Drama Centre in Chalk Farm, north London.
Lives now in...
Belsize Park, north London.
First big break
I won the Ian Charleson Award (given to actors under the age of
30) for playing Konstantin in English Touring Theatre's production
of The Seagull. I went up a bit after that in terms of the offers
I was getting.
Career highlights to date
I did a recent workshop with a Russian theatre practitioner and
the British director Katie Mitchell. We spent two weeks working
on a script, and it was really interesting going back to the basics
and thinking about things one tends to forget. Working with Declan
Donnellan and Tony Kushner on Homebody/Kabul was another highlight.
Declan is quite rigid with his doctrine, which he's now having
published. He doesn't block like most directors. It's very liberating
as an actor but also dangerous because, when you go on, you don't
know what's going to happen. All you know is what you want, but
you don't know how to get it. It's very subversive and very challenging.
Favourite productions you've ever worked
on
Whatever production you're in at the time you feel really allied
to it in terms of family and pride because you all work so hard
to get them where they are.
Favourite co-stars
I don't want to name individuals as it’s always the people
I’m with at the moment. You tend to bond very closely because
of the support you give each other.
Favourite directors
Katie Mitchell - although we've done a few workshops, I've never
actually worked for her. Declan Donnellan, of course. And Christopher
Fettes, who was my teacher at drama school. It's not so much that
they're any better than some other directors I've worked with,
but they each have a way of working that I find inspiring. They
bring out things in me I didn't know were there.
Favourite playwrights
Every time you do Shakespeare, you get very excited all over again;
you want to read more and do more. I also like Pinter and Racine.
Pinter because what he did with language - the verse quality,
the sense of character, everything that's happening between the
lines - was truly groundbreaking. Racine because of its passion.
What roles would you most like to play
still?
Quango Twistleton (an opium-addicted diplomat) in Homebody/Kabul
was the first time I played someone who was, at least in parts,
funny. Hearing people laugh when I delivered my lines was a wonderful
thing. I would like to do more of that, get my teeth into a good
comic role.
What's the best thing you've seen on stage
recently?
Remembrance of Things Past at the National. I had no idea what
to expect and found it very inventive in its use of music and
its suspension of time.
What advice would you give the government
to secure the future of British theatre?
I think drama students should have mandatory grants, the same
as you'd get if you were studying economics at Portsmouth. As
it stands, you have to already have a degree in order to qualify
for a grant to train. But that's not right. You don't have to
be an intellectual to be a good actor. There's no substitute for
getting up there and doing it, which is the opportunity you get
at drama school. My drama school saved me from going down a very
different route in life. For three years, we were like acting
monks, we worked so religiously at our craft - from 9.00am to
10.00pm every day. It's something I'm very proud of.
If you could swap places with one person
(living or dead), who would it be?
I would love to be musical and I'm not, so maybe I could be one
of the great English composers, like Elgar. I was going to say
Mozart, but I think it'd have to be an English one because there's
something quirky about the English imagination. Or perhaps I'd
be Churchill, to know what he was thinking when he was making
those speeches.
Favourite holiday destinations
I have three: Cornwall, Morocco and Rio de Janeiro.
Favourite books
They keep changing as I get older. There seems to be an optimum
time to read certain books. I remember reading Milan Kundera's
Life Is Elsewhere when I was about 17 and it's always stayed with
me. I was so disappointed when it ended; I experienced a real
sense of loss. I don't know what the optimum book is for my 30s,
though I have just finished reading Harry Thompson's biography
of Peter Cook, which I enjoyed.
Favourite after-show haunts
Anywhere that serves beer that isn't a theme bar. We did go to
a karaoke bar in Milton Keynes when Macbeth was there. I sang
Free's "Alright Now".
If you hadn't become an actor, what would
you have done professionally?
I did my A-levels to become a pilot in the RAF but decided I wouldn't
look good in the uniform. Seriously, it just wasn't for me. I'd
like to think I would have been a farmer or a fisherman, a proper
man's job, doing something with nature. But I don't know if that's
a real or romantic notion. I'm probably not tough enough for either.
It might have been nice to be a teacher, teaching the classics
maybe.
Why did you want to accept your part in
this production of Macbeth?
I'd heard really good things about Edward Hall, which have proved
to be true. He's a terrific director. In a few years, he's going
to be one of the top directors in this country - if not a politician.
Also, I didn't really think I was castable as Macduff so, when
I was asked to do that part, I thought it would be interesting.
What do you think about the 'curse of
Macbeth'?
Touch wood, nothing really's happened yet. The only weird thing
was in Richmond. The last time I was at that theatre was in The
Seagull when I ripped my knee up and was on crutches for weeks.
The first night there with Macbeth, I was on stage and my knee
started to ache again. The ache's gone away now. I don't believe
in curses anyway.
What's your favourite Shakespeare play?
I love Measure for Measure. I did it once and remember thinking
how it could be done in a million different ways. It's so varied.
I don't know. I can't quite pin it down; maybe that's what I like.
It has an elusive quality that I find fascinating.
Why do you think Shakespeare's plays are
still such an integral part of British theatre?
His characters are blueprints for humanity. Whoever he was, Shakespeare
had an ability to make people see themselves for themselves. It's
about all of our frailties up there on stage. And that's what
will save us from killing one another, the fact that we recognise
ourselves in each other. That's what all theatre at its best is:
the essence of life in a bottle.
What's your favourite line from Macbeth?
"Light thickens." That's what Macbeth says when describing
the dusk as it gathers, and it gives a slightly creepy edge to
it.
What are your plans for the future?
After Macbeth, I'd like to take a diving holiday in Cornwall.
I have no plans workwise yet. We'll have to see what happens.
- Mark Bazeley was speaking to Terri Paddock