JEREMY Northam talks about getting to grips with the themes of Dean Spanley, working with Peter O’Toole and how the tale of reincarnated dogs and father-son relationships resonated personally.

He also discusses why he’s keen to avoid doing too many period movies (even though he admits they’re his bread and butter!)…

Q. This must have been a pretty tough film for you because you’re in virtually every scene…
Jeremy Northam: Well, sort of November through to mid-December in north Norfolk is perhaps not the best time of year for 5am starts. It felt longer than the six weeks it took.

Q. But isn’t that your manor anyway?
Jeremy Northam: I used to have a place up near there. But we started in the west of the county, which I didn’t really know at all. But I was familiar with the cold, damp winter. And as I went for my early morning run I only had to dive in the hedgerows twice to avoid beat trucks hurtling in the other direction. And once I had to avoid Sam Neill and his driver going to work! [laughs]. He said: “You must get some reflective clothing, for God’s sake!” I suppose it’s a very reactive part. So it concentrates your energy shall we say?

Q. And the father-son element of it was what you found particularly attractive?
Jeremy Northam: I think so. There were a number of things… I’d be lying if I said that my heart didn’t sink slightly as I read yet another period movie having done so many and said I wouldn’t do any more. But it uses the expectations of a British period movie against itself to some extent. People take it as a by-word in British movies that everyone is repressed emotionally. I don’t think that’s true necessarily but you feel it goes with the territory and sets up nicely the idea of this festering relationship between the father and son. It’s not to much that they’re repressed emotionally, but they don’t hear each other and they don’t respond to each other.

But there were also elements of whimsy in the script that were self-evident right from the start. But it did also, I suppose, set alarm bells ringing a little bit in that I hoped it wouldn’t teeter in that direction too much. But Toa [Fraser, director] was very good from the start in reassuring us that he wouldn’t allow that to happen and the main thrust of the story was the possibility of understanding between these two men, who are affected by their grief in their own way. There’s a lot implied about the past relationships with the son who is dead and the film doesn’t stoop low enough to go into flashback or back story too much. In fact, the only back story you get is O’Toole at the table saying: “Bring out your dead when there was a storm.” But there’s a lot implied even in that story about the past history of the family unit. So, there’s a lot to feed off and really the more whimsical element of the script was really the device to get to the nub of the matter, which was the reconciliation between the two of them.

I think it’s interesting to see that it’s a middle-aged man in this story. So often with tales like these, it’s tempting to cut back to when he was a kid to explain the origins of the story, or to cast a much younger bloke. But there’s something about the fact that they’ve obviously both lived a bit and parts of them have died or been shut off, or given up. So, again, I thought there was room to explore that. There were a lot of unusual aspects about the script.

Q. Could you relate to elements of the story in regard to your own relationship with your father?
Jeremy Northam: I think all of us blokes of a certain age would discover that we have some kind of personal connection with understanding what the story was about. Suffice to say, it’s still a source of some surprise to me that relationships with parents can become more complicated as time goes by… not the other way around. But I suppose the fact that relationships do continue to change – they don’t necessarily stay the same through those shape-shifting experiences in life. So, it wasn’t so much a cathartic experience for me; it helped me shed some light and gain some kind of perspective on my own experiences. I could put something away for a bit.

Q. How did you shape your relationship with Peter O’Toole given that so much of what’s said between you is unspoken?
Jeremy Northam: By not talking about it. He didn’t want to talk about what was happening in the scenes, or to rehearse before. I could understand why and was quite in agreement about it. Everyone asks: “Is it nerve-wracking working with Peter?” But I think that it must be nerve-wracking for Peter working with people he’s not worked with before [smiles] and I hope – and think we did – make him feel as happy and relaxed as he could be. I hate saying this, but so much of performing together is based on trust, however fleetingly.

We feel very exposed in front of each other at times – it can be like doing a dance, naked, to potentially millions of people. And when you’re that exposed it’s not very hard to imagine feeling as though the other person can look right through into your very soul and spot whether you’re lying or telling the truth. But there’s also a great comfort to be derived from that when people can just enjoy each other’s company, relax and trust that they’re being supported by the other person. I think he felt that and I certainly felt it. He enjoys a good laugh but he works very hard and has a wealth of experience.

Q. How do you stay in the moment where Sam Neill reveals he was a dog without laughing?
Jeremy Northam: Well, sometimes you do! It’s very hard not to. But he was brilliant. We were doing one of those scenes for four days – so, he got a fair amount of piss taking going on and, “try and get your f**king lines right!”

Q. It says in the production notes that Peter recommended you for the role?
Jeremy Northam: I seem to remember something about that at the time. And I also seem to remember confronting him about it at the end of the shoot, when he denied all knowledge of it [laughs]. So, I don’t know… you’d have to ask him.

Q. You mention that you vowed not to do any more period films…
Jeremy Northam: Oh, I vowed that years ago! [laughs]

Q. But you’re doing Creation next, about Charles Darwin?
Jeremy Northam: Yes, but I’ve only done a few days on that so far and it seems to be going extremely well. Paul [Bettany] and Jennifer [Connelly] are playing the leads and they’re lovely, John Amiel is directing. John Collee wrote the script when he was at Bristol Royal Infirmary, so it’s very strange to be doing a script of his 27 years later. It’s based on a novel called Annie’s Box and about the death of one of their children and the subsequent publishing of The Origins of the Species. It’s about him coming to terms with the death of a kid. He was married to his cousin and she was conservatively religious; he wasn’t irreligious himself but one of their children inherited a genetic problem that was probably a result of their genetic closeness. So, it sort of went some way to prove the strength of his own theory. So, there’s very little in the nub of the story that needs to be spun or re-shaped for it to work as a really good movie. It has really good people involved.

Q. But you’d like to do more contemporary things?
Jeremy Northam: Well, I suppose the frustration with period films is that you feel somehow that the period-ness of the picture distorts somehow the story from any kind of accessibility for a contemporary audience. So, you get to the point where you think that you’re not interested in making something that’s deliberately archaic or hard for an audience. You’re trying to liberate it to make it comprehensible. It doesn’t matter where the story is set… I think it was David Mamet who said that all stories are period stories because they were written and conceived yesterday. So, for me it’s about uncovering the shapes, themes and ideas that lie beneath the dialogue really, and affecting a discussion of ideas or feelings that go beyond the confines of the piece. Sometimes if feels with period movies that you’re having to fight a lot of that… “oh God, not another period movie!”

Read our review of Dean Spanley

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