Interview with Anthony in Metro UK
Discussion of Six Degrees of Separation, Merlin (a 5 year arc?!), Free Agents (a second season could happen?!) and more
Anthony Head unravels the social network
Keith Watson - 5th January, 2010
Uther Pendragon in Merlin. The Tony Blair-alike PM in Little Britain. Rupert Giles in Buffy. Apply the principle of Six Degrees Of Separation and you could make a bizarre social network out of those characters. And at the middle of it all would be Anthony Head.
The actor whose name means Gold Blend smoothie to one generation and medieval monarch to another, is taking to the stage in the John Guare play which catapulted the idea of Six Degrees Of Separation - we are all connected by a maximum of five social links - out of its scientific niche and into the popular imagination. So much so that the phrase has subsumed the play - and later film - which popularised it. But Head, starring alongside Lesley Manville and Obi Abili at London’s Old Vic, reckons that’s no bad thing.
‘I think people will be surprised. They’ll think they know the story but they don’t. It’s actually quite dark,’ he says, catching a breath between rehearsals. ‘It’s also incredibly fast and it’s very economically written. It’s a definite buzz tackling something like this because you can’t miss a beat.’
By dark, Head is referring to Guare’s merciless stripping away of social vanities, mixed with an undertow of psychological instability and a penchant for the odd shock character. A hustler wearing nothing but a pair of white socks and a scowl puts in an appearance at one point, lending an air of menace to what starts out as the beguiling tale of a young black man called Paul who charms his way into the impressionable hearts of well-heeled New York art dealer Flan and wife Ouisa by claiming to be the son of Sidney Poitier.
Not that Six Degrees plays the race card. ‘Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner is mentioned in the play, but it’s a generation on from that. It’s not about racial integration at all. The only relevance of Paul being African-American is that it’s something outside Flan and Ouisa’s comfort zone. He completely turns their world upside down and makes them examine their lives - and in doing so it makes us all question why we do what we do. It’s a play about where imagination takes us.’
Head is calling on his trademark easy charm to play Flan, a sign that he’s comfortable with having shaken off the suave schmoozer tag that threatened to dog his early career. Blessed with a snappy way with a sound bite (‘it’s about how close we are - and how far apart’ is his off-the-cuff suggestion for a Six Degrees catch-line), he’s relishing the contrasting career opportunities now coming his way at the age of 55.
To escape the Gold Blend label, he upped sticks and tried his luck in the US. ‘I was perceived here as a romantic hero and I didn’t want to be stuck with that. It didn’t happen in the States overnight, it took 18 months before Buffy came along. But the coffee ads were a blessing rather than a curse because without them I wouldn’t have gone to America - and I wouldn’t have got Giles.’
The success of Buffy has allowed him to juggle projects such as hit Saturday teatime drama Merlin (‘there’s a five-year story arc - we’re going to be raising some interesting questions’) with the likes of hardcore C4 sitcom Free Agents, in which he had a ball as potty-mouthed showbiz agency boss Stephen. ‘He was a joy to play, he was such a scurrilous character. I was throwing caution to the wind! A second series has been green-lit but it depends on someone finding the money.’
Not that he’s stressing over that - Head’s rolled with enough showbiz punches to know the score. He thought he was on a sure-fire winner with BBC1 comedy drama The Invisibles, only to see it canned. ‘I loved it and it gave me a chance to act with my daughter, Emily. She was doing a tiny budget comedy at the same time, playing Carli in The Inbetweeners, and we thought: “The Invisibles will be the one to take off.”’ Who knew? There’s no trace of rancour there: if he ends up as ‘Carli out of The Inbetweeners’ dad’, you feel Head would be completely cool with that.
Six Degrees Of Separation is at London’s Old Vic from January 8 to April 3. www.oldvictheatre.com
SOURCE: Metro.co.uk