|
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
| If
anyone else calls Richard Coyle a Welsh actor, well, he might just
use his best Welsh accent and say: “Breasts”. Blame the
odd behaviour on Welsh Jeff, Richard’s character in BBC TWO’s
adult comedy Coupling. In one episode, Jeff stares at a beautiful
girl and says in a longing, drawn-out Welsh drool the one word : “Brrrr…eassts”.
Ever since then, people have been coming up to him with a request:
“Just say “breasts” for us, please?” “It’s become a bit of a catch-phrase,” says Richard, a proud Yorkshireman, born of parents of Irish stock. But he can understand why some people take him for a Welshman. He did live in Cardiff as a youngster for several years and his actress partner Georgia Mackenzie ("Passion Killers" and "Border Café") has family living in Wales. Then came Coupling and Welsh Jeff and a summer in Wales in heroic John Ridd’s boots filming Lorna Doone. There’s a bit of the hero in Richard, who was also seen last year as the nerdish Mr Coxe in Wives and Daughter. “Heroes are different today; they are not the same as the ‘40s and ‘50s with the Erroll Flynn stuff,” he ponders. “You don’t just ride in, kick ass and ride home. Heroes today, like John Ridd in this adaptation, can be insecure. They can worry too. That’s where I can see parts of John Ridd in me. I worry a lot. And once John’s met Lorna he’s wracked by self doubt.” “I love the ‘Boys’ Own’ stuff, the thrill of galloping across the valley.” There is also something of the gallant in Richard. He was discussing with his co-star Amelia Warner (Lorna) what might happen to the couple if someone wrote a sequel. It turned out that Amelia thought Lorna would have a couple of kids, quickly weary of rural life and leave John Ridd for London society life. Richard was mortified. “That’s terrible. I’d like to think that we’d be married forever. Perhaps after a year or so, we might move to London. But I think they would still be together.” The production team think they have a winning pairing in Richard and Aidan as the rivals for Lorna. There was no animosity between them as Richard and Aidan, but work on set was marked by a chilly professional working relationship for “John” and “Carver.” “It’s funny,” Richard says, “there was something going on between me and Aidan. We like each other, but we somehow kept our distance because of the way things pan out in the story. That affected me and Aidan. It’s helped that we haven’t spent a great deal of time together. There are frozen moments when we’re gazing into each other’s eyes, taking the measure of each other as Carver and John.” Richard, whose film credits include "Human Traffic" and Mike Leigh’s "Topsy-Turvy", sees the story of "Lorna Doone" as a rites-of-passage for John as he tries to lay the ghost of his father’s death to rest. Richard’s own rites-of-passage acting career started in college where he was studying politics and getting interested in amateur dramatics. Later, when he was struggling to raise money for a place at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he got an extra’s job on Franco Zefferelli’s film of Jane Eyre. He mentioned to the great director that he was about to start at drama school, and Zefferelli gave him a line to say. Richard’s professional debut came with the words: “Mr. Rochester … your house is on fire!” Richard, whose recent credits also include the British sitcom "Up, Rising" and the role of the roguish Trimmer in Evelyn Waugh’s "Sword of Honour" for Channel 4, says: “I have been very lucky. I think my dad is watching over me. I think he’s up there whispering in someone’s ear, saying look after the lad.” Richard’s father, a builder, died just at the time that Richard’s career was taking off. “He died just when I started filming "Coupling", and I really wished he’d been able to see "Dalziel and Pascoe" which I told him I was going to be doing. That was the moment when he thought his son was going to be all right. That series was something he recognised.’ Richard’s mother, who works in mental health community care, did visit the Lorna Doone set, but he secretly suspects she was just there to see one of her own heroes, actor Martin Jarvis, who plays Hugh, Baron de Whichehalse. His father would certainly have been proud to learn that his son would follow "Lorna Doone" with a second series of "Coupling" and working alongside Hornblower’s Ioan Gruffudd in a film thriller, "Happy Now", which he’s just finished filming… in Wales! Perhaps the up-and-coming Yorkshire star should consider Welsh adoption and be done with it!'s On caught up with Richard Coyle to discuss demon hunting, disturbing dreams and his own supernatural experiences... |
Copyright
© 2001-2004 RICHARDCOYLE.COM
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved