The Great Contender
Paddy Considine has been punching above his weight for years, but is yet to draw the crowd he deserves. With 'In America' the best Brit actor you've never heard of is due to become a marquee name.
Words Dan Jolin, Portrait Andy Fallon
Too few people saw Shane Meadows' lost Brit classic, 'A Room for Romeo Brass'. But those who did were uniformly startled by the then-25-year-old Paddy Considine's powerhouse performance as social misfit Morell; his transformation from comic relief to terrifying bully is nothing less than astonishing. Yet as Meadows himself has since admitted, it didn't do his leading man (and Meadows' longtime pal)any favors. The problem? he was too convincing.
"The simple reason was, I was unknown," says Considine when Total Film meets up wit him at the 2003 Edinburg film festival. "people didn't know if I was really like that. They even brought the producers up and I'd have to sit with them as Morell, and drill them with stories and ideas I had involving giants and quests and fucking golden sheep. I just gave it to them full on, and the didn't know that I was a balanced guy. They thought I was this kid...which was good fun!"
Now Considine is four years older and four years wiser, but he's hardly four years more famous. His roles in Pawel Pawlikowski 'Lat Resort' and Madchester movie '24 hour party people' were impressive, but bearly breakout. That's all about to change.
There's a good reason why Total Film are ensconced in a pair of huge leather armchairs on a bright August morning, nursing minor hangovers at Edinburgh's ultra-swish The Scotsman hotel. Irish writer/director Jim Sheridan is at the festival to premiere his latest movie 'In America', a deeply personal adaptation of his own experiences as a struggling immigrant with a family in tow in early '80's New York. And Considine is the man he's picked to play disillusioned father Johnny, an out-of-work-actor struggling to recover from the death of his only son while providing for his wife (Samantha Morton) and two daughters (Sarah and Emma Bolger).
Aside from the obvious draw of working with Sheridan - who has made Daniel Day-Lewis a star with 'My Left Foot' and 'In the name of the Father' - Considine confesses that he, too had a personal reason to do this movie. "When I read the script I understood Johnny right away," he admits. " I haven't lost a child or anything like that, but the way in which he's lost faith was something I could identify with. I'd seen my Dad deteriorate from cancer, then he died about two weeks before we started filming, and I went through a bit of depression thinking, 'Well, what's the point?'. There's times when I find acting so ridiculous. You know, you talk about seeking the truth and then you stand up in the middle of it and think, 'What fucking truth?' So I could see the ridiculousness of Johnny trying to be an actor under those circumstances."
If Considine seems keen to demystify the acting process, it's because he'd actually given up on it as a career option long before Shane Meadows gave him his first break. "I was the kid who was a bit of a delinquent," he says. "And I started doing plays and realised that, if I did this, I could earn people's respect - teachers' in particular. They were pleased I wasn't just pissing everything down the drain. Then I went to drama college, where I met Shane, and just got so disheartened. "The whole process of it was so bullsh*tty. when someone said to me 'be a car engine' I'd say 'why?' and they'd say 'because I told you to,' that's not an answer for me. You might aswell say why don't you go and have a piss over there and get out of my sight...' so I jacked it in and so did Shane." Considne went on to become a professional photographer and was trying to launch a new career as a director with a short movie about ex-boxers when Meadows approached him to play Morell.
That was his first turning point. But does he think 'In America' is his second? After all, critics have already praised his layered performance as Johnny, while Sheridan's movies usually do well Stateside - better, infact, than they do over here . Could this be the boy from Burton-on-Trent's passport to Hollywood? Considine shrugs. "It's a massive turning point as an actor, but career wise? I don't know. It's up to other people. I'll go wherever life takes me."
He at least rcognises that working with Sheridan has given him a much-needed push. "I can be a bit like a journeyman prizefighter or a complacent champion," he says raising his fists and feinting jabs as he becomes absorbed in his pugilistic analogy. "If the challenges aren't coming forward, I'll go on a comfortable points decision. Whereas, if you're faced with someone like Jim, and he worked with Daniel Day-Lewis who's done all this incredible stuff, it's like preparing for Mike Tyson! You think, 'I'm going to pull out all the stops.' The point is I need to be challenged. Otherwise I'll just limit myself to making similar films"
"And there's some great American movies. I watched 'Punch-drunk love' the other day - it's off the radar. I'd definitely like to do that kind of project..." Considne stops and grins, as if realising he might be sounding like a sell-out. There's no chance of that. He didn't take any shit from his acting teachers and he's certainly not going to take any from Tinseltown. "weather of not I'd want to go to America and play a pirate - maybe not. Obviously I'm not going to do something like 'Crocodile Dundee 4..."
