How did you become an actor?

My mum and dad were big old am-dramers around Croydon and Surrey.  My dad was directing a musical, Waltzes fromVienna, which I’ve never heard of since, I think it’s a Johan Strauss operetta, and they needed a kid in a sailor suit.  I was six and dad twisted my arm and I did it, but I don’t remember it much – but I loved it and I wanted in.  When I was seven or eight, I joined a little, part time dancing school in south Croydon called The Alexander Academy of Dance and Drama and it started from there.  They had ties with an agent in London, so I went up to meet this very lovely, but slightly alarming woman called Wendy Wisby, who I think is now dead, bless her.  I joined on her books when I was about nine or eight, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

I stopped for a couple of years to do my duty, my GCSE’s, like a good boy, then I went to Arts Ed and actually studied Musical Theatre.  I did a load of that and then eased my way into acting.  I finally ended up in telly and then from that ended up here.

Who have you been inspired by?

People who I have worked with have inspired me.  I’ve worked with Michael Grandage a couple of times now at the Donmar, he’s very good, and he’s brilliant at what he does.

I’ve worked with James McAvoy, about five years ago, who was brilliant even back then.  We see each other every once in a blue moon now and he’s doing so brilliantly; he’s a really great actor and I admire him greatly.  Firstly, he’s so wise for his age, he’s brilliant, and he is also a very fine actor.  

I suppose I went to see lots of musicals when I was younger, and that’s the style of show, that I admire and how I first got bitten by the bug.  I thought that was what I wanted to do, and I did, and I still love it – when I did Guys and Dolls I loved it!

I’d never met David Bradley before this play.  Of course I know of his work and he’s wonderful; just the few days we’ve spent in rehearsals have been truly, truly amazing.  Inspirational is the wrong word because we haven’t been in there long enough, but it’s very exciting.  Con O’Neil I know from Micky in Blood Brothers which I saw when I was twelve or thirteen, and I can still remember him leaping over that sofa doing this scouse accent! Just looking around the room yesterday, was a bit awe inspiring really.  

I’ve never set out to be anyone really.  There are quite a lot of movie stars I like such as John Cusack - I just love his style of acting, but I don’t think it’s for me personally - but I do think that he is brilliant.  When you go back and look at some classic performances like Brando in On the Waterfront for me at that time with the style of acting that was around (and I know Montgomery Clift and James Dean were doing it slightly before Brando), but to do a performance like that and realise it so well amongst people who were acting in a totally different style, I think was incredibly ballsy and incredibly brilliant.

I also like Julianne Moore, I think she is wonderful.

How did you get the part of Mick in The Caretaker?

Jamie Lloyd (the Director of The Caretaker) and I were working on Michael Grandage’s Guys and Dolls, in London.  Michael was directing The Wild Duck and I was finishing up on Eastenders at the time, so Michael and I were only around for three hours at the same time.  Jamie was the assistant director on Guys and Dolls and we were rehearsing a lot, he basically did everything with me!  Jamie and I got on well, and there was a clear kind of mutual respect and it’s obvious with Jamie that he’s going to do incredibly well, and he’s what only 25/6 and he’s flying, you can just tell when you meet some people.  

Jamie and I were talking one day about doing a Phillip Ridley play actually - A really, really disturbing play that we wanted to do in the Studio here, and we approached Samuel West (Sheffield Theatres’ Artistic Director), and I think it was all going quite well.  Then I finished Guys and Dolls and went on holiday and when I came back my agent phoned me and said ‘Oh, it’s not going to work with the Ridley play, but they want you to do The Caretaker on the main stage’.  Of course offers like that don’t come along very often, and I’ve always, always really liked The Crucible Theatre.  I have never worked here before, but I’ve seen quite a few things here.  So that’s how it happened really, luckily I didn’t have to audition or anything like that or I probably wouldn’t have got it!  

So that was that, then about a month later David Bradley agreed to play Davies - I was just on the floor - I couldn’t believe it!  Then Con O’Neil came onboard to play Aston , so we’ve got a really strong team, and of course the joy of doing this play is that you know it’s so brilliant.  You don’t worry ‘Oh god we're going into the weak bit of the play now’ or the bit that doesn’t quite make sense.  You know it’s so solid, and so clever, and so intricate that you don’t have any fears about the text so to speak, which is great.  Because in my experience, even with some parts of Shakespeare’s plays there are bits that you go (and I love Shakespeare) ‘Oh God it’s the bit when Peaseblossom, Cobweb and Mustardseed come on and prance around for a few minutes.’  So knowing how clever and intricate the play is, that was a joy as well.  

We are really lucky and I suppose if we don’t make it work then we’ve gone seriously wrong.

How did you initially approach the text and your character within that?

I did a bit of Pinter when I was at college; we did a bit of work on The Dumbwaiter, which at a musical theatre college is unusual.  I’m not really a massive intellectual about Pinter, I don’t know all his work, but I’ve read quite a few more now and I’ve read some books of course, so I’ve really come to the play with quite fresh eyes.

In terms of preparation: when I first read the play it was really to start to re-connect with it, I got up to speed with the play, got used to the language.  Researched a little bit about 1959 and that kind of style.  But it all takes place within the house - and obviously we’re not of the moment - my character is the most up to date, so far, but he might not be next week!  He might have a limp next week, I haven’t got a clue!  So just that really, getting myself ready to take everything onboard really, I mean I’m not off the book or anything like that, but I’m quite tuned in.

I don’t like to do too much, make too many decisions before you turn up to rehearsals, because I think the plays very ambiguous and that is its strength.  

We’re going to know amongst ourselves, definitely.  But I don’t think we’re not going to be spelling it out to the audience, because so much of the play is about what is not being said.  You are saying one thing, but you’re actually responding to somebody else’s subtext, you are not actually responding to what they are talking to you about. 

We want the audience to feel slightly like they are making their own decisions about the story, rather than dictating it to them because then they loose it - it’s no longer ambiguous – we’re telling them exactly what to think.  Of course there are ways in the play to lead the audience but… As I said we're only in day 2/3 of rehearsals.

Mick’s relationship with his brother Aston is markedly different to that with Davies; it could be said that Mick takes on the role of ‘caretaker’ for his brother.  Can you describe Mick’s relationship with Aston?

The massive underlining point in The Caretaker is fraternal love: Mick’s love of his brother (Aston) and his brother’s love of him is huge.   Although very interestingly the brothers never actually meet during the play - they talk right at the beginning of act two, when Aston comes on - but then nearly every other time - when Aston comes in, Mick leaves, sometimes even before he gets in the room.  So there’s this really interesting relationship, which is very much based on their love for each other, and caring.  

If anything there is a sense of loss.  Imagine your best friend, and coming back and he can’t really speak properly, communicate, walk or talk and is really slow.  Imagine loosing that but then being around them, and every time you looked at them, I think, Mick’s actually trying to see what was there before, the spark's still there, is it going to come back to the surface.  

There is a definite element to rehabilitation in this play for Aston.  I think that is part of the reason why Mick entertains Davies for a while, rather than just throwing him out, is because he thinks he might be good for his brother, but also he doesn’t want to undermine his brother by being the one to throw him out - Mick needs Aston to see it.  

The brothers only have each other. That in the end is the breaking of Mick because he can never realise his dreams and aspirations, Mick cares about his brother and that is more important than making his house into a penthouse, or anything else.  Mick is the closest one to realising his dream; at least he leaves the house! 

But Mick also lives in a fantasy world where he thinks he’s going to succeed.  Yes, he has a van, he goes on about his van like it’s gold bullion!  But then again, we all do that, to make ourselves feel better, we all fantasize about what we are and what we could be.  I think the fantasies of the characters in the play have slightly gone over the edge.

The power games within The Caretaker play a pivotal role in establishing the relationships between the characters and their position within the house.  Mick uses power games to show his dominance over Davies, can you explain what you think motivates Mick to act in this way?

The power game comes out of Mick looking after his brother and seeing that Davies is a very soft target, but potentially harmful to Aston.  Mick thinks that Davies is going to manipulate his brother and nobody does that.  So Mick physically abuses Davies to start with, and then he just beats him with words.

Mick constantly tries to wrong foot and off balance Davies.  He basically befriends him so he can completely break him. It’s all power struggles and how Davies fatally decides Mick is his friend, instead of Aston.  As soon as Davies makes that choice he’s gone, it’s a fatal error, because the only way he could of stayed where he was in the flat, is to side with Aston.  

The motivation for Mick to act this way comes from their past.  Mick has gone from being the youngest brother, to being the primary carer.  We’re playing around the idea of late teens for Aston and Mick about five years younger, when Aston has the Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) treatment. 

We’re not completely sure about how visionary Aston was and or how mad he was to deserve his ECT treatment he received described in the text.  Because in those days that type of treatment had became par of the course, rebellious teenagers going through puberty, were being considered as suitable candidates for the ECT treatment.  

So when Mick is twelve years old he was looked after by his big brother, and then Aston has ECT treatment and when he comes out, he is not the same he doesn’t talk properly for years.  Just imagine them as boys – Mick had this wonderful brother who had everything, then had it all taken away from him.  

For Mick to have lost his brother like that must have been very traumatic.  We also think that the brothers have come from a very much fractured family.  There's no mention of a dad which is very interesting, and there’s a little bit of talk about their mother - apart from ‘that was my mother’s bed’.  Mick becomes very defensive, when Davis starts in on his mum and I think he gets quite aggressive there.  I think obviously she’s probably not around in some shape or form; it could be that she died, I think so, but we don’t know if this is true - that’s the joy of the play!   However this is all a back story that we’ve made up - we don’t know if it’s true or not. 

So Mick treads carefully when dealing with Aston and Davies, in that he manipulates the situation.  Mick doesn’t actually deal the final blow, he breaks Davies and then leaves; and Aston is the one to throw Davies out.  But Aston starts the ejection of Davies from the flat as well – so it’s all very clever.  Mick is very, very careful not to undermine Aston, because that’s his big brother.  So it’s very complicated, I think, their relationship.   

As for the little slight smile which appears as they finally look at each other at the end of the play; there’s something in that that we are discovering – we don’t know what it is yet and maybe we never will.  That‘s the brilliant thing about the play - it’s the sort of play you are not going to get bored of, that’s for sure, and it would be fascinating to do this interview next year, because I’d probably tell you something completely different.

That is the brilliance of it – I've read up on other versions of the play, that have been done all women versions, all black versions, versions in Romania where Aston is Jesus and he’s washing Davies feet.  People take it to all kinds of levels of madness.  I think it’s quite funny and then it actually becomes really disturbing.  It’s like when a joke is repeated. You know when someone tells a good joke and it’s really funny, then they tell it again because someone else sits down and it’s not so funny and they tell it again because they just want someone to laugh at them and it becomes uncomfortable, repetitive.  So what starts as funny about Davis and this scheme to go to collect his papers, actually becomes not very nice.  It’s the same with Mick, I imagine when he says ‘What’s your name’, the second time he asks it, it’s like ‘oh he’s a bit quirky’, but by the third time you think, ‘weird’.  That is the pure genius of the play.

Clearly Mick is quite a multi-facetted character.  How have you created, indeed how did you approach a character with such juxtaposing characteristics?

I don’t know yet.  I haven’t got a clue.  I think it’s working out why Mick is like he is, it’s not just about why is he aggressive.  I think Mick’s aggressiveness is born out of frustration: what happened to his brother, communicating with his brother - that’s where his rage comes from.  

How do you approach a character that complicated?  You keep an open mind and take it all on board as the play evolves.   The other great thing about the play and the most frustrating thing about the play, is sometimes they lie to each other and they talk absolute rubbish.  So there’s some stuff you cannot take on board as character analysis - it’s just lies!  That’s brilliant as well because your trying to work out, well I’m completely lying to Davis about you remind me of your uncle’s brother....  it’s like bang, bang, bang and most of that is absolute rubbish, but within it I think there are some real truths - like; ‘He was my uncle’s brother, but to be quite honest I think it was the other way round, my brother was... ‘ and maybe that bit's true and to me it’s elements of that.  The complexity is great and sometimes you don’t actually need to spell it out.  You can’t always play three, four different thoughts in one line because you’re making the audiences choices for them, I think as long as I’m aware of them and I am aware of how complex it is - then I will make internal choices and some of them audiences will never read.  

I can’t wait to be in the bar after the show, because people will watch a different play.  Two friends can come up and they will see different things.  What was it about?  Where were you going at the end?  Some people will think that Mick has left for good. Other people will think he’s just gone round the corner.  Some people will think the whole thing was a set up from start to finish.  That’s what I love about it.  The complexity is there and that’s what makes it really interesting to do and hopefully I’ll bring that out, but, I don’t want to bring it out to the point of spelling it out, so we’ll see….