Live 24-Seven - Interview “
...it’s so great that Birmingham has made this investment in what is ‘all our futures’
Is there a character or role that until now has evaded you? I’d love to play opposite Yoda [laughing]! I’ve been extraordinarily lucky, I like being taken by surprise and I think it’s so flattering when people think of things that they want you for. I’ve written and produced and worked in all areas of the business, but I’m much happier now in my early 50s as an actor because it’s great when things come at you, like when Roxana said, I want you to play Tartuffe, that would never have occurred to me, that’s much better than me saying, “I want to do this and I’m going to aim for this”.
What’s the next project for you? Ohh I don’t plan. I’m coming back to Birmingham in December to work with the CBSO, which I’m extremely excited about! I was in Dr Who and asked to go out to Sydney to do some narration for what is basically the Dr Who prom, and I was in the Opera House with wonderful orchestra music, great big projections of Dr Who images, scenes that the music went with, fabulous! I was in Liverpool for the showcase and the CBSO from Birmingham were bussed up for it and if I may be so bold ladies and gentleman, that feeling of being stood in front of a world-class orchestra was something else! So I’m narrating for the CBSO’s Festive Favourites and if I don’t burst into tears at some point in the evening due to how magical it feels to be surrounded by that quality of sound, it will be a miracle!
Let’s keep with that festive theme, what would you most like to unwrap under your tree this Christmas? I’m never very good at this, but I have a bee in my bonnet at the moment, you can travel by freighter, cargo boat and I’d like a couple of tickets to go from London through the med to India! That’s what I’d like!
Do you love to travel? You don’t have much down time from work, no real dry periods… Touch wood! I’ll touch it for you too, but is that what you like to do? See a bit of the world? I’ve seen a bit of it through work and prefer to
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see it that way, I find being a tourist isn’t for me. I had some great trips with Harry Potter. Dan, Rupert and Emma did a lot of the early stuff and got ferried around the world and after a while they’d had enough, so then the second team were up and I said “Yeah I’ll do it” and we went to Scandinavia, Madrid, New York, Paris – I stayed in Le Bristol, which is Paris’s Dorchester. I felt like James Bond one night as I’d finished work and was meeting friends who live in Paris for dinner, so I went down to the bar, dressed for dinner [putting on a posh voice] and the waiter in wonderful French said, “Ahh Monsieur Williams” and proceeded to state my drink – he knew exactly what I was drinking and I stood at the bar and thought actually in some ways it doesn’t get any better than this! [Laughing]
Do you pinch yourself when you look back on your career? Oh absolutely, yeah! I remember where I was the moments when I got things! I remember where I was when I got the phone call to offer me Father Brown, getting the lead in theatre is great and the lead in a film, but the fact that you’re the star of your own miniseries on television – you feel like your own Columbo for a minute! [Laughing] My agent called me and he said, “You’ve been asked to go for a Father Brown series in Birmingham, but I’ve told them you’re too busy to go and told them to make you an offer” and I said, “Oh great, which part?” thinking that it would be something I’m used to doing like a nice baddie or something in an episode, and he said, “Father Brown” and I said, whilst trying not to sound elated, “Right okay”!
What’s the best line you’ve ever delivered? Umm, well a line just popped into my head there from Shakespeare in Love when Wabash comes out and he delivers a prologue to Shakespeare in Love and he can hardly get it out [Mark proceeds to deliver the line with the stutter that he delivered it in the movie] “
T...T...T..Two houses, both alike in dignity”. Great to deliver that line in the Globe, with cameras and lights on you and 500 extras and the thought in your mind that it was going to be in a film – no pressure there! [Laughing]
See Mark in Tartuffe at The REP from 1st – 16th November. Directed by The REP’s new Artistic Director, Roxana Silbert.
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