Close to the edge
From violent criminals to murderous war veterans, Paddy Considine has made his name as the dark man of British indie cinema. So why is he still unable to watch his own work? With new Russell Crowe flick Cinderella Man under his belt and Hollywood calling, Arena suggests he tries harder...
Photography by David Bailey Styling by James Sleaford Words by Justin Quirk
Paddy Considine isnt anyway near as big, physically as he should be, all things considered. When you examine the series of well-chosen roles where he exuded the kind of menace that sucks the enjoyment out of a room in a second; most notably the disjointed seaside hustler in the grim realist asylum-seeker drama Last Resort, and the avenging squaddie of Dead Mans Shoes who returns home to pick off the local thugs that have been bullying his retarded brother; youd imagine him more imposing in the flesh.
While he certainly still looks like he could handle himself well enough, he doesnt give the impression hes about to invite you outside. In some ways Considine is a very old fashioned actor. Shorn entirely of any precious prima-donna approach to his craft, he has built his reputation on choosing the right parts (often very different ones in succession) rather than tethering himself to celebrity vehicles, and on building intimate relationships with a small handful of directors (Pawel Pawlikowski and Shane Meadows primarily).
This is reminiscent of the way an entire generation of jobbing British actors like ray Winstone came through under Alan Clarkes guidance or how Robert Carlyle cemented his public reputation with the double-whammy of Hillsborough-traumatised psycho skinhead; in Cracker and Hamish McBeth. It is also redolent of a time when there was a significant sector of the British film industry making defiantly British films, rather than any old derivative shit they thought would sell in the US.
I go on the director as much as the script, says the 31-year old in explanation of what draws him to a role. He has just finished his shoot with David Bailey and later admits Arena;s legendary snapper and film director was instrumental in helping him through a situation he finds instinctively uncomfortable. I can;t bear it when you get some directors who just sit on their fannies behind a monitor I dont like it. I like directors who get in your brain. Its a really bad analogy but if you leave a guitar in a corner its not going to play itself. With the best directors, you dont struggle with your lines because they've planted stuff in your head.
This need for a symbiotic relationship with the director was forged by Considine's formative work with fellow Burton-on-Trent native Shane Meadows. The two met at drama college, an experience that Considine recalls as a year sat in a canteen smoking Marlboros, tearing my throat out not what I'd call training.
It was obviously a pivotal meeting for both men and Considine has previously said, When I met Shane, life changed. Id lived in a small town, in a bubble. So had Shane, but he was different. The world seemed massive to me how do you ever achieve anything? But Shane made the world seem the size of a tennis ball.
After a few years working as a photographer, Considine was approached by Meadows to play the part of slightly sinister neighbour Morrell in his feature film A Room for Romeo Brass. The film was a cult hit and well-received critically, although was stymied by possibly one of the worst advertising campaigns in living memory.
The marketing was awful, pathetic, he spits. Its no wonder no one saw it. That poster a big pair of pants it was; He grasps for the right word. Insulting. They showed me the posters before they went out, and I remember thinking, This is shit. I thought it was a work in progress. He calms down and smiles at the absurdity of it all. I wont be putting it on my wall, put it that way.
Outside of his work with Meadows with whom he also made last years superb 'Dead Man's Shoes' Considine's most fruitful relationship has been with Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski. The pair first worked together in 2000 on 'Last Resort', where Considine played an ambiguous local character who takes it upon himself to assist a beautiful Russian asylum seeker and her son, who have ended up in Margate.When I met him [after Romeo Brass] I was getting sent a lot of scripts that had the same thing: the guy being a nutter. I was very conscious that if I was going to have a career Id have to show the flip side of what I could do. So the characters damaged, and hes vulnerable like a lot of the guys I play but hes not mad.
This sense of controlled menace was reprised with Pawlikowski again in last years acclaimed My Summer of Love, as a reformed criminal keeping his violence at bay with born-again Christianity. The Guardians Peter Bradshaw described his performance as Superb saturnine. He;s also appeared in Michael Winterbottoms film of the rise of Manchesters early Nineties music scene, 24 Hour Party People (as legendary New Order manager Rob Gretton), the Chris Morris short My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117, and iconic videos for both Coldplay and Moloko.
But Considines career trajectory is about to take a steep upwards turn with his role in Russell Crowe;s new film Cinderella Man. Based on the true story of Depression-era boxing comeback-king Jim Braddock, Considine plays his workmate in the docks, a stockbroker who has lost everything, and who comes to a sticky end while trying to whip up a workers revolt. Given his aforementioned relationship with esoteric art-house directors, his decision to work with former Happy Days star turned multiplex-pleasing director Ron Howard seems initially surprising.
There's no way on earth I wasn;t going to work with Ron, he states unequivocally, about the man behind A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13. People can be very snobbish about films and about someone like Ron and the kinds of films he makes in some ways he;s not taken seriously because he makes big, generic films and theyve got a very definitive Ron Howard stamp. I think youd say someone like Spielberg is considered more of an auteur, because his films have a very visual stamp, whereas what defines what a Ron Howard movie is the emotions in it. And he captures the human moment every time.
Throughout our time together Considine seems strangely dismissive of what he does. He never watches his own films, doesnt own copies of most of them, and is hugely self-deprecating about his own performances. He still lives in his hometown of Burton-on-Trent with his long-term partner and child, and later talks of his fear that moving away from the area might result in a loss of inspiration.
That said, he was unfazed by going toe-to-toe with an actor of Crowes magnitude and reputed abrasiveness. I want to put myself up against people who are considered to be the best in the world. You put yourself in the fear zone, the only way youre going to get any better. Its not intimidating going up against these people on set, not at all. Not because Im some big brave guy every time we start a new film theres always a period when Im telling myself theyve cast the wrong guy and Im going to get fired."
However, this uncertainty seems to be what drives Considine as an actor.Theres all that doubt,he admits,but theres also a fight in me where I just think, Theres no way Im walking away from a challenge.Ive always been like that, Ive developed more as I got older, but its always been a trait in me. I was'nt confrontational as a kid in a bullish way but I've probably always been at the centre of something."
The challenge for Considine now is whether he can continue to play his characters with such nuanced ambiguity as the roles get bigger. His upcoming projects suggest hes going to remain an idiosyncratic figure. Firstly he plays the builder who apparently confessed to topping Brian Jones in Stephen Woolleys Stoned. He is also about to start shooting a Deliverance-style modern horror in northern Spain with Gary Oldman and 30-year-old first time director Koldo Serra, before starting work on PU-239, a particularly apposite Steven Solderbergh-produced drama about a nuclear-plant worker who begins flogging plutonium to terrorists after being screwed over by his bosses.
I dont want to do the same performance all the time, he stresses, explaining how he passed on Meadows latest film, provisionally titled Bulldog, about National Front skinheads in 1983, because we mutually decided it wasnt going to take us anywhere if we did this one together. And while you might want to tell Considine to stop being so self-critical, the results are so good that you also wish more actors would kick themselves up the arse with such frequency.
Theres a massive side of self-doubt thats always been there, and a feeling of not fitting in,he admits slightly ruefully.And yet, Im now out there. Im at the centre of it.
