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Andrew Scott: Nine things we learned from his This Cultural Life interview

BAFTA winner. Olivier winner. Hot Priest. Andrew Scott is often called one of the best actors of his generation. Since he blasted into the public eye playing Moriarty in the 成人论坛 drama Sherlock, Scott has been constantly acclaimed for his work on TV, film and stage. His biggest roles include a villainous supporting role in the Bond film, Spectre; the impossible priestly love interest in Fleabag; and a performance as Hamlet that received five-star reviews across the board. On this episode of This Cultural Life, Scott sits down with John Wilson to discuss how he very nearly didn’t become an actor, his struggles growing up gay in Catholic Ireland, and why he never really plays villains. Here are nine things we learned.

Listen to the full interview here

Andrew Scott with John Wilson

1. He feels guilt about giving up an artistic career

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Scott grew up in a progressive, artistic household. His dad worked for an organisation helping young people find employment. His mother was an art teacher. Scott originally intended to follow his mother’s path. “When I was six or seven, I knew I was really interested in painting and drawing,” he says. “I was really obsessed with it growing up.” As a teen, he planned to pursue it as a career and won a bursary to study painting, but on the exact same day the bursary came through he was cast in a small role in an Irish film, Korea, which changed everything. “On a fateful day, when I was 17, I had to choose between these two things,” he says. “I’m left with a sense of guilt… because [painting] was such a huge part of my life growing up, and it’s not as much a part of my life now.”

Acting was a real way of affecting different types of personalities within myself.
Andrew Scott on being a teenager

2. He started drama to overcome a speech impediment

Scott took drama classes when he was a child, though not originally entirely for the acting. “The reason I started Speech and Drama was more for the speech element,” he says. “I had a real lisp when I was a kid and I had to go to these elocution lessons… Eventually that disappeared, as it does for a lot of children, but then I really got into the drama element.” Drama became helpful to him: “It just brought something out of me and continued to as I was struggling with myself in some ways in my teenage years. Acting was a real way of affecting different types of personalities within myself. I don’t think I would have developed in the same way personally if I’d just been a visual artist.”

3. He was (very briefly) in Saving Private Ryan

Scott got his first taste of Hollywood working for Steven Spielberg on the Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan. You’d be forgiven for not realising he was in it. “I say I was one of the guys in green,” he jokes of his unnamed role of a soldier who is one of many killed on Omaha Beach. “I had one line, which was ‘Nobody’s where they’re supposed to be!’ Then Tom Hanks rolled over me and the rest is history.” It may have been brief, but he clearly did something right because a couple of years later he was cast in a larger role in the Spielberg-produced TV show, Band of Brothers. Neither role gave him a taste for fighting. “I cannot stand weapons,” he says. “They used to say on Band of Brothers… ‘Here comes the reluctant soldier.’ And they were right. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

4. He was devastated when Sherlock was first broadcast

There’s no argument that Scott’s big break came playing the villain Moriarty in Sherlock. Most people would remember the reaction to his appearance as universally positive, but not Scott. He followed commentary on social media, the first time he’d seen instant public reaction to his work. “Some people thought it was great and were really celebrating it, but some people absolutely hated it,” he says. “I was devastated by that. And embarrassed. I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’ve completely humiliated myself’… I remember calling Mark Gatiss (the series’s co-creator) and saying, ‘I’m really sorry.’ Because of course all you remember is the negative stuff. He said, ‘Oh god, I meant to say, never go online’.” With hindsight, he’s glad he saw some negative response. “Universal praise [means] you’re over-praised. If you’re doing something original then you should have slightly diverse opinion.”

5. He never “plays” villains

For a while, Scott was famous for bad guys. As well as Sherlock, there was a baddie role in the Bond film Spectre. He learned there’s no such thing as playing a villain. “What I think is really interesting about villains is they’re not interested in being a villain,” he says. “It’s like when you play a king. You don’t play a member of the royal family – everybody else does. So when you come into a room everyone bows. That’s how people know that person has power. In exactly the same way, I think [what’s important is] how the story’s constructed around the villain.” He thinks that was done particularly well with Moriarty. “What’s interesting is removing some of the dialogue, using that character very sparingly and him actually having a great time and being playful. What he may do is demonic and destructive and scary, but the really scary thing is that he’s having a good time.”

6. He was terrified doing Hamlet

Almost every serious actor will at some point do a bit of Shakespeare. Scott has been a fan since he was a teenager – “His language is extraordinary and completely ‘actable’; I felt like I understood it” – but he didn’t perform any Shakespeare on stage until playing Hamlet in 2017 at London’s Almeida Theatre. “I couldn’t have been more daunted!” he says. “But [director Robert Icke] said something brilliant that I’m always grateful for: Shakespeare isn’t like eating your greens. It’s not something you should do as some sort of signal of your own virtue. It should be entertaining.” It made him find ways to make Shakespeare sound natural and conversational. He says, “The art of acting is pretending you don’t know what you’re going to say next when you do.”

7. He loved becoming a romcom sex symbol

One of Scott’s most enduring characters is the so-called “Hot Priest” in the sitcom Fleabag – “I think it’s important to say that the character was never called ‘The Hot Priest’ in the script,” he insists. The character becomes a focus for Fleabag’s affections, which he can’t return. It was a new type of role for Scott, letting him play the romantic comedy lead. “Romantic comedy is something I’ve always wanted to do and I’m so grateful Phoebe saw that in me,” says Scott. “I also love that people saw that chemistry isn’t based exclusively on your sexuality. Your imagination is the most important thing you can possess as an actor.”

So much of homophobia could be eradicated if in society we just made the decision not to assume everybody is straight.
Andrew Scott

8. He found it difficult growing up gay in Ireland

In his new film, All Of Us Strangers, Scott plays a middle-aged gay man whose parents died when he was a boy. Through a strange supernatural twist, he’s able to speak to his parents and discuss things that were unsaid when they were alive. That includes telling them he’s gay. He found it a very emotional experience to watch it with an audience. “I was really overwhelmed by how extraordinary it was showing that part of myself that for so long I was ashamed of when I was a young man,” say Scott, who came out in his early twenties, not long after homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland in 1993. He says he found it very tough hiding his true self for years. “I think what’s insidious for so many queer people is that to desexualise anything is a really awful thing. I think what has happened in the past – and I hope that’s to a lesser extent now – is you desexualise yourself… You’re sort of hiding in plain sight and people, out of respect I guess, don’t broach that with you. You don’t have the adolescence your straight counterparts might have… So much of homophobia could be eradicated if in society we just made the decision not to assume everybody is straight.”

9. He's a natural rebel

Asked what spurs him on creatively, Scott says “I’ve always been a little bit slightly naturally rebellious in some way, I think. I may not appear that way, but I’ve never been overly interested in what people think.” It’s for that reason that, despite his increasing fame and reputation, he’s not massively interested in doing huge films. “The idea of being on set for seven months and eating chicken and broccoli is just not how I want to spend my time.” He’d like to keep surprising people, including possibly going back to his original passion. “Drawing and painting, I’d love to explore that side of myself. I’d love to live as colourful a life as possible and try to do the unexpected.”

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