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00:05
I don't know the secrets of acting at
all the secret the only secret I know is
the suit you can have emotion you find
emotion you experience emotions you
react but don't act the emotion because
that's not real life
if you have the stories and some of the
best stories about the crossing of
Alabama
I don't have a particular role that I I
single out I want to do I quite like the
00:44
random
I like baking pies we are inherently
unique so I think the more the more
authentic you are
it's a great pleasure and an honor to
meet you and to have this talk with you
and to pick your brain to find out the
secret of your acting the art of acting
you have played many British gentlemen
is there a secret to British gentleman
type in terms of gestures the way of
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speaking mannerism etc I don't know the
secrets of acting at all the secret the
only secret I know is the suit it does
most of the work really in hair style
hair suit the idea of a gentleman I
think as far as it means anything is
quite superficial I'm not saying that
there aren't profound qualities which
are to do with grace dignity if that's
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what we mean and that those are not
specific to the English I think that the
archetype we're talking about and often
it's used in the roles I play just for
comedy because it's to do with comedy
deals in in in archetypes or stereotypes
being a gentleman has nothing to do with
one's accent it's about being at ease in
one's own skin having way said there is
nothing Noble in being superior to your
fellow man true nobility is being
superior to your former self
we know that British actors tend to be
02:33
very well educated they graduate from
places like Oxford and Cambridge and
they are immersed in great literature
and part of that is reflected in your
repertory take you for example
you have starred in many roles many
movies and television adaptations there
are from great British literature from
Pride and Prejudice to The Importance of
03:04
Being Earnest how important is that
legacy to you as an actor I can only
speak for myself it is important to me
it's not true of all British actors
obviously not everybody there are some
real artists of cinema in the UK who are
not expressing the works of literature
you know whose work is probably more
reflective of current events in the
world today that they do not they're not
03:35
expressing the world of Education and
and literature and I think some of the
most important cinema coming out of the
UK or of anywhere is that cinema but I
happened to grow up in a house full of
books my parents are academics I did not
go to Oxford or Cambridge I went to a
drama school my father did go to
Cambridge so Ivan I inherited a kind of
ethos and so I've I've always had a
great curiosity about about literary
04:04
fiction and a great love of language I
love what he can do to the imagination
and I love what it can do to one's
language and I'll one of the great
things I value about my own country is
the language I think it is it has a
beauty and precision and sense of irony
tremendous nuance
I don't speak enough other languages to
compare it to anything but that is
something I celebrate by about my own
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and if you may if you talk about it
shakes
an obvious example it enhances the
imagination a stupid person can play
Hamlet and enhance their intelligence in
the process because the thought process
is so electric and so alive that your
mind grows as long as you engage with it
and actually you know Jane Austen is not
Shakespeare but the elegance elegance of
her prose I don't know how easy it is
05:09
her to translate it into any other
language with these subtlety and nuance
of her prose has a very similar effect
and so it was exhilarating for me to
just to engage with the words talking
about language let's start from your
award-winning
movie The King's Speech because in that
story language or speech rather is
figured so importantly that person he's
the king but he has a speech impairment
05:40
do you think for a public figure speech
is that important rather than something
else I do think it is important
especially more times I guess well it
was not only wartime but yes exactly
because the the he had to speak to the
country at a time of grave crisis but he
also was in the worst possible moment in
history for a person who is afraid to
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speak
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Oh
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people thought he was stupid which he
was not you know you only have to have
any recording of you know his what he
wrote his letters his comments this was
a very intelligent man so he was
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misjudged and suddenly he was thrown
into this position of responsibility
which was all dependent on his ability
to express himself I don't think we
appreciate those of it even those of us
who don't have to speak publicly I think
we sometimes underestimate how
debilitating it is if you can't use your
voice did you feel the kind of pressure
or responsibility to recreate everything
as it was
to portray this captor or do you feel
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that you had more freedom more freedom I
think it's generally I mean different
actors will probably have a different
view of this for me it is far more
important to get to the truth of how of
the nature of an experience than it is
to provide a perfect imitation of
something I was allowed some freedom
because my character although you know
he was the King of England and was known
he wasn't as universally recognizable as
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say Winston Churchill or Kennedy you
know anybody in the world would
recognize that Churchill's silhouette
you know in a dark light Georgia the six
did not have that kind of recognition to
today's generation so it was possible
for me to have some freedom to
personalize it and I thought it's far
more important to convey the terror of
these silences that he were imposed upon
him by his own difficulties and his
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dignity and his sense of humor to make
them in a way that I understood you know
to be effective rather than trying to
copy a voice I did listen to his
speeches but rather than try to sound
exactly like him I tried to sense what
he
he felt I could hear the difficulties I
want to go one step further how did you
balance the dignity where's the
humanists well for a start I wasn't
working alone you know I was working
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with an extremely astute director and
actors like Geoffrey Rush and Helena
Bonham Carter and these are things that
you find together you know we had quite
a lot of rehearsal and the director Tom
Hooper was was worried about the things
you're talking about he thought you know
this speech difficulty has to be very
extreme or there will be no jeopardy we
won't understand the stakes but if it's
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too extreme it will alienate the
audience because one of the problems is
that it is very uncomfortable to see
somebody struggling like this you don't
want people to leave the theater and
then unfortunately stammering has been
used for comedy through the years and
this is it's caused a lot of pain to
people who suffer from this in real life
and so these were all traps that had to
be avoided
and so I think it was it was up to me to
be as you know to be as authentic as
10:16
possible to really try to love this man
and and not to judge anything to
understand his vulnerability but also to
give him as much dignity I mean but
there's a there's a key thing here which
was emphasized in the in this particular
job I was told at drama school never
this may sound strange you know to tell
an actor never play the emotion to be
aloof no doesn't mean that you can have
emotion you find emotion you experience
10:48
emotion you react but don't act the
emotion because that's not real life
shortly before the King's Speech there
was a single man that movie may not have
been watched by a lot of people here in
China but it was a huge critical success
in least innings speaking countries
and you portray a gay professor station
in Los Angeles if I'm not mistaken what
do you to that part because it sounds
11:20
like so far from the typical roles that
you play I opened my email one morning
and I found an email from which said Tom
Ford a fashion is I know yeah I had
never made a movie before that I never
made a movie yeah so I was very
surprised I didn't know he had my email
address and he was just writing saying I
want to make this film it's a based on a
novel by Christopher Isherwood that's
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very strange I had met Tom Ford but I
had no idea he intended to make a movie
and I thought it just seemed so unlikely
and so strange and so interesting I
didn't know really much about him even
as a designer I don't know very much
about fashion but I thought I have to
meet him and I met him and he was very
very interesting and magnetic you know
to talk to but it was a very busy time
12:24
for me I initially was going to say no
because I I was exhausted from I'm
surprised I was surprised you said yes I
said yes actually on an impulse because
it felt like an adventure
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Carlos what did you say
12:54
Carlos using my name just a sense of
going into the unknown you know one of
my favorite quotes is from Miles Davis
who said don't play what you know play
what you don't know and the result was
satisfying to you I guess it was
profoundly satisfying I think you are
asking about roles which stay with you
that more than anything else I've ever
done in my life has Davis was there also
an element of imitation because you know
13:26
it it's a gay role and there's almost a
tradition for straight actors to to
learn the mannerisms of typical know
it's probably politically incorrect
typical gay mannerisms and some of that
especially in comedy is very common but
that's not a comedy and your performance
was very restrained and it was quietly
moving there was no mannerism in that
yet people could sense that his sexual
13:58
orientation and other facets of his
Korean is his life I never thought about
it at all
it didn't matter it was a love story
story about grief about solitude about
isolation them his partner happened to
be a man it had no other relevance
really at all Tom Ford as a gay man
didn't care much about that aspect he
said and I was sitting next to Tom at a
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press conference where he said you know
his his sexuality is no secret in the he
but he's if he was asked to say ten
things about himself the fact that he
was gay maybe number eight he would say
I'm from Texas I am a fashion designer I
love movies you know so it wasn't the
predominantly important facet of the
character and the there's there was not
15:02
no need to be
a feat or camp or any of those kind of
stereotypes and if you meet Tom Ford he
doesn't have any of those qualities
himself so and I know a lot of
heterosexual men who are very camp in
defeat as well commercially are your
most successful movie so far has been
Kingsman the Secret Service it has
garnered let me see 480 million he in
China
14 million dollars worldwide I'm
wondering when you first received that
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script did it sound like another James
Bond movie to you because at the time
when even Daniel Craig was trying to
reinvent the James Bond
here's another James Bond was that a
challenge for you to either to throw it
away
another James Bond or to make it to
infuse new life into a new venture no it
did not feel like a James Bond
I met Matthew Vaughn about a year and a
16:06
half before we started shooting and he
hadn't finished writing the script yet
and I knew from talking to him that he
wasn't trying to make James Bond he was
using James Bond we have to remember
Kingsman is a comedy Kingsman is is it
has it's a it has a satirical comic book
very self-aware Sensibility I understood
that when Matthew Vaughn even the fact
that he approached me he said I I want
16:38
you to play this role because not
because you're right for it but because
you are the last person in the world
anybody is going to imagine you know
killing all these people was that a
compliment
probably not but he said I you know you
this character must be a cold steel
killer but it should surprise people he
wanted to reference a very traditional
idea exactly the stereotypes you're
talking about conscious that they are
stereotypes
again it's comedies that make fun of it
17:09
medicine but also celebrate it you know
this is the where he's it's quite
sophisticated because I you know in the
way that I think he's paying homage to
these things as well as satirizing them
so he's not trying to demolish the the
mythology everything from you know the
the Sean Connery era bond through
Michael Caine's Harry Palmer movies or
the Avengers perhaps or even all the way
to Austin Powers I'm in the spy genre
17:41
from Licari through to you know Austin
Powers all through or Jason Bourne it's
very broad but he wanted to give it to
reference a kind of something we would
recognize from another era of this the
gentleman spy and to contrast this kind
of decorum and elegance with the
outrageousness and they and they and the
craziness which is possible through the
the world of comic book which means that
18:15
you can be much much larger than life so
I knew that we were doing something
which were had a kind of popular culture
self-awareness let's talk about mr.
Darcy I don't know how many of you have
seen that version of Pride and Prejudice
which was aired on CCTV here in China in
the nineteen mid 1990s and has been
available online in both the dubbed
version and subtitled version and it has
18:47
been held by a lot of people in China as
people in the rest of the world as the
best Pride and Prejudice adaptation of
all those wonderful adaptations to the
thing that's most memorable to me is
that case the Darcy case did you
practice that did you design it no I
know women here will have different
perspectives but I just watched it last
week for the second time and I still
19:18
believe that it's worth recommending to
everyone who loves great TV and great
literature
you should say something about the dance
perhaps
I might remark on the number of couples
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you talk by rule and when you're dancing
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then we may enjoy the advantage of
saying as little as possible it's a
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wonderful that it's lasted so long I
mean it was we filmed it more than 20
years ago now and the fact that people
still watch it and talk about it is it's
not something I would have expected to
how to happen ever in my career so to do
something of that has that durability is
extraordinary as I told you it would
before we came out I haven't seen it for
20 years so I can't really judge have
you been avoiding it deliberately no I
just you know it there has never been a
20:25
moment where I think what shall I do
today ah I'll spend six hours watching
myself in Pride and president
I may get round to it at some point but
it hasn't happened I it would be I'd be
quite curious to go and look and see
what the fuss is about because at the
time it was just another job you know
for television yeah I heard you turned
it down the first time here was offered
to you yes I thought I was the worst
possible choice I it was a it was a time
20:55
in British television where the costume
drama the period costume drama had
somewhat gone out of vogue but what
happened as I remember it was that the
previous year the BBC did a production
of Middlemarch George Eliot's
Middlemarch which was a great success
and very very good and suddenly I think
there was a moment where people thought
its back we can do this now
you know but also there was a pressure I
thought you know that maybe the one that
worked and don't try did the same trick
twice and when they excuse me when they
21:26
offered me I'm when they offered me
Darcy I thought you can't play him you
know he works in the book but how do you
inhabit this character because he he
doesn't do anything he doesn't speak
really much he case he stares abyss yes
I mean you know he stares out of the
window he stares at Elizabeth Bennett
and he looks forbidding but that's gonna
be boring I mean
you know and there's no I don't know
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what to do because I don't think I'd
look like the guy I don't think I am
like the guy and I'm not you know I'm a
he's a very contained everything
everyone thinks I am now I'm not I took
more than he does I'm more animated than
he is
and I thought this guy who stands very
still and very silently I don't know how
to transform into that and and be
interesting after putting your stamp of
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authority on mr. Darcy do you have more
interest to play other roles that you
know from great literature that have
been played by other people Hamlet for
him sup for example I'm a bit old for
Hamlet Oh actually I think Cumberbatch
is also too old to play Hamlet
no he's alright I think Hamlet is quite
flexible yeah but I am too old I played
him as a drama student and it was the
beginning of my career in a way because
23:02
it was because of Hamlet that I did you
know I got seen by agents and casting
people and then I you know so it led me
to work immediately and so I I had it
was only a student production but I had
a very exhilarating experience with it
and I would love to have done it again
it's a pity in a way that that moment
passed again it's to do with engagement
of the language I don't have a
particular role that I I single out as
something I want to do I quite like the
23:32
random aspect of my job you know taking
a I like being surprised you and Hugh
Grant played rivals in Bridget Jones and
in real life I read somewhere in some
reports that sometimes you were
considered for the same role and now
that I think of it you there are many
British actors seem to fit the British
gentleman type perfectly how do you
differentiate differentiate yourself
from Paxos be I don't think it's
24:03
something you can decide about if you I
think if your success
as an actor or probably in any area of
performance or any area of creativity
your originality just happens to be to
do with your own personality because you
know we are inherently unique so I think
the more the more authentic you are to
yourself the more likely you are to have
your own specific qualities and the
24:34
answers there have been a lot of us UK
co-productions all along and to a
Chinese eye it's sometimes difficult to
tell which is a British film or which is
American film because the talents from
both sides of the Atlantic Ocean often
work together and we've seen say British
actors playing American roles with a
standing degrees of success and vice
versa have have there been cases that
25:07
you noticed say an American actor doing
things that are not authentic I wouldn't
tell you here the reason I asked you
about US UK co-productions is because
because I wanted to know you your take
on possible UK Chinese co-productions
our two couches of course have a wider
gap we we have different languages and
different customs theoretically is it
25:37
possible for our two countries to make
movies that can appeal to both markets
absolutely it has to be I mean we're
going to see the Great Wall soon so
that'll be an interesting test case if
you have the stories and some of the
best stories are about the crossing of
cultural boundaries
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