Posts tagged 2010

I recently caught up with Dominic West to talk about Centurion for it‘s UK Blu-ray/DVD release (16th of August). In Centurion West stars as a tough as nails Roman general in a gripping story of survival. As a HUGE – so huge the capslock was needed – fan of The Wire, West will always have a completely heterosexual spot in my heart as McNulty, one of the great characters in Television history.

What appealed to you about Centurion?

Dominic West: The sword fighting, the horses, the shields and battles…it’s all boy’s own stuff.  Yet I was being paid for taking part!

What were you looking forward to most, when you read the script?

Dominic West: Having a mud fight with the beautiful actress Olga Kurylenko. Unfortunately, they gave her a long pole with which she was able to keep me at arm’s length.  I wanted to get down and dirty in all that mud.

It looked like a tough shoot with all the snow and mud.

Dominic West: It was tough from the first minute of filming to the very last.  The director wanted realism at all times and he was not going to make it look soft or pretty.  So you had to live as you might have lived in Roman Britain.  If it was cold – and some days it was freezing, at several degrees below zero – you just got on with it.  He got some shots of us looking in agony, which are realistic.  They are realistic, because we genuinely were in agony with the cold.

Your own life has been anything but cold, with the recent marriage?

Dominic West: It is a final chapter of my great love story.  We met when we were both at university in Dublin.  She became my girlfriend and I thought she was fabulous.  But she had other ideas and dumped me. I was either too immature or too stupid to make our relationship work.

What was your reaction?

Dominic West: I was devastated, but being a bloke – and the kind of bloke I am – I pretended that I was not hurt.  I was, of course.  I was really hit for six.  She then married somebody else, which was really hard to take. I thought to myself:’I hope this is not the worst mistake of my life.’

And was it?

Dominic West: It could have been.  I was living a typical actor’s life, travelling around, enjoying the work and having a mad existence.  Actors can become totally self-obsessed and I was no different.  It does not make for the most stable of private lives.

How did you meet up once more?

Dominic West: It was by chance, at a party.  Catherine’s marriage was over, she’d had no children and I was on my own again after a failed relationship.  The sparks flew and I was not going to mess it up a second time.   We became engaged three years ago and had three children, in quick succession.

You love action, life and speeding cars, don’t you?

Dominic West: I have always enjoyed driving and have had some good cars and bikes.  I have an Audi A3, a Yamaha 600 cc bike for scrambling and a Triumph Bonneville.  I once had a Honda Magna motorbike, which looks great.  I came out of the house one day to find a turd on the seat.  I thought ’Does anyone hate me that much?’  But when I told a group of hardened bikers what had happened they showed no surprise.  They said ’That’s what happens when you get a girlie bike, pretending to be a Harley Davidson.  You were being sent a message.’  So I am more careful now about getting the right bikes and cars.

And how about the Eton image? Are you at ease with that?

Dominic West: Not really.  I was the second youngest of an Irish family of seven from Sheffield, Yorkshire – and, for some reason, my father decided I should go to Eton, aged 13.  It was the biggest culture shock of my life.  I thought of them as southern softies.  I had a Yorkshire accent and came from the steel city, for goodness sake.

Has it helped in acting?

Dominic West: Totally the opposite.  I’ve had too many parts for posh blokes.  That is why it was so refreshing to go to America and play McNulty.  No-one was judging me other than on my acting.  Being an Eton schoolboy in this country is a statement. Look at David Cameron – it is always being referred to.

How did you get in to the acting business?

Dominic West: I was cast as Hamlet, in the school play, by an English master called Raef Payne.  He was passionate about teaching and acting and trying to improve all of us.  It is that kind of passion which inspires.  He was the one who told me ’You must do acting as a profession.’  I was not even aware that you could be paid to have so much fun.

Did you go to drama school?

Dominic West: The first thing I did was take a gap year in Argentina.  I worked as a cattle herder, in the middle of nowhere, about a two day drive from Buenos Aires.  So I was riding all day, which suited me fine.  I was up at four in the morning, we’d roast a lamb, with some wine, for breakfast, and then worked up to 12 noon.  We had a siesta in the afternoon and then started working again.