TV Guide
Interview - Transcript
I: So tell me a little bit
about the second series...
(01:00:42.00)
Jamie: Well, it's two very exciting films that differ from the other ones
that we've done so far in that they are one story. It's all revolving
around one long protracted sea voyage and is basically about a mutiny.
A captain who hasn't got the respect of his crew and his officers, and
bullies certain of his officers. And its about decisions that group of
men make to try and rectify the situation. It's a dilemma, and it's also
a courtroom drama because they then held a court martial for the mutiny.
And it's sort of told, then, in flashback, from a jail cell. So the
whole thing hangs together very well. It's very suspenseful, and it
works as a thriller and as a courtroom drama, so it's very different from
the ones we've done so far.
I: Wow! Have we learned everything about Archie yet at this point? Or
are we gonna see some more?
Uh, no there's - - he changes. So far he always jokes. Archie gets all
the afflictions, and everything that's bad that's gonna happen seems to
happen to him. So at this time, no. He's much more settled, much more
mature, much more comfortable with his new role as a Lieutenant. He's
been promoted, and for the first time in the series he's not the direct
focus for the bullying senior officer. There's a new character called
Wellard who sort of takes that role and Archie's able to be a bit of a
comfort to this younger Mid…--he's a Midshipman, I think.
I: Talk to me about that -- because in the beginning Archie was a - a
M-Man, and then a Midshipman and then a Lieutenant.
(01:02:31.00)
Jamie: Oh, the M-Man is just an abbreviation for Midshipman. So Archie
starts it off as a Midshipman, same as Hornblower, the lead character.
He then becomes an acting Lieutenant, which is the step that a Captain
can make -- an acting Lieutenant before someone's actually been
commissioned because he's short of a Lieutenant. So in the third film,
The Duchess and the Devil and -- no I mean the fourth film Folks and
Lobsters as it's called in England or The Wrong War I think it was called
over here -- he was an acting Lieutenant. But now he's he's a full
Lieutenant. He's fourth Lieutenant on the on the Renown.
I: What are the differences and duties between a Midshipman and a
Lieutenant?
(01:03:11.24)
Jamie: Well, the Midshipman was the lowest officer rank. And it's -- in the
Navy it'd be the son of a gentleman or a doctor's son, something like
that. You'd be sent aboard ship -- a Captain would take him for a
certain time. The parent would give money for the Captain to take his
son, to basically train him. So it was the sort of training rank of a
young officer and there'd be young boys of eight, nine, ten, very young,
who'd start off as Midshipmen, then the Lieutenant is the first rank
proper when they have to pass an examination for Lieutenant and they
become commissioned. So that's the first sort of official rank, the
first step up and maybe people didn't move beyond Midshipman. It was a stumbling
block for a lot of people. But the more promising ones were
made into Lieutenants and then they would be on their way up, hopefully
to greater things.
I: You said something about the episodes in England having different
titles.
(01:04:11.07)
Jamie: Yeah…
I: Why do you think that is?
(01:04:13.00)
Jamie: I'm not sure. I know the English titles, in the book they're short
stories. And they've stuck with those. Over here (Indecipherable) have
decided to change them slightly. I think they're more punchy and
shorter, just a little more memorable perhaps. In the Frogs and the
Lobsters or - or what was the other one? The Duchess and the Devil
instead of whatever they came up with over here which was much more
punchy. [Note: It was "The Fireships" instead of "Examination for
Lieutenant]
I: Well getting back to Kennedy, tell me a little bit… what's your
favorite thing about Lieutenant Kennedy?
(01:04:42.15)
Jamie: Well, I like him because he's -- there's a lot to play because there's
a lot going on. He doesn't find the roles he's confronted with that
easy. He's not like Hornblower…he seems to think through everything and seems
to make the right decisions on a gut level. Archie just doesn't --
he's sensitive, he sees I think what - what I would see in those
situations, which is fear and death. And he sort of wonders how he's
able to cope with those, whereas Horatio seems to be able to just cut off
and to dig deep into some sort of reserve that he's got deep down in him.
Archie really does let things get to him and when he's bullied he
wonders why him. And he can't respond in the way that Horatio does.
And yet what makes him interesting is he's best friends with this
character who does seem to make all the right decisions. So Archie's
forever holding a mirror up to himself which is just showing himself as
falling short the whole time. So he's very interesting to play cause
he's human and he's also outspoken. He voices his own qualms and his
problems with decisions that are made. He voices his own fears, he
reacts with incredulity or he will communicate his shock and his
difficulties and Horatio doesn't always do that. He's very internalized,
he tends to deal with things on his own whereas Archie sort of voices
them to other people. So it's a very interesting relationship to play.
And in these next two films Archie's very much aware of this because he's
got this other Midshipman - Midshipman Wellard, who sort of looks up to
him. He's just trying to replicate the relationship that he has with
Hornblower to this younger character. And so there's lots of things
there which are interesting to play for an actor because you know it's
more interesting than just playing hero all the time… He makes the right
decisions. He's always got a conflict to resolve…
I: Tell me about the pony
tail…do you like it or not?
(01:06:47.05)
Jamie: Um no, I really don't… it's a real pain to wear. It's something that
a lot of people ask -- were they permanent? Are they real? The answer's
a bit of both -- they're definitely permanent, they stay in there for the
whole shoot. So they're in there for three months…but its like a weave,
it's sort of glued to your to your head, basically. So you shampoo with
it, you live with it, you sleep in it. And in the sun you know it's --
I'm not used to having long hair like that anyway. So it's a bit like a
wet fish down the back when you're in the shower, which I'm not used to.
And the whole thing about it -- for the first time ever I understand a
woman's excuse to not go out -- that you're washing your hair -- and its
perfectly justifiable! (Laughs) And that was a shock but -- no, the
funny thing about them is they're actually not real hair either. They're
sort of a - a nylon strange thing so it doesn't actually feel natural.
So no, I really don't like wearing them but you know they have that
comedy value too. You can go have 'hair down' nights and the boys go out looking
like Def Leppard, which is sort of fun.
I: Talk to me a little bit about the wardrobe…is it cumbersome? Do you
like it?
(01:07:52.08)
Jamie: I think that they're cool clothes you know, they look quite cool.
(Laughs) they're sort of fun in a new romantic kind of a way. But they
are heavy, and we recently have been tending to shoot in sort of warmer
climates, so yeah. We have to watch re-hydration and stuff like that to
make sure we're drinking enough liquid. Because they're woolen and
they're very bulky, and I don't know how they would have coped in -- well
I mean I know what they did, they just didn't wear it all the time. But
it was -- yeah I know its tough, but they're good looking clothes and
they're nice to wear and they're very flattering so you know you put up
with it (laughs).
I: Tell me a little bit about some of the locations…
(01:08:29.07)
Jamie: Well, over the years we've filmed -- well we started off in the
Ukraine, which is a very interesting experience. It's very different
from everywhere else we've filmed. Down in Yalta in the Crimea, it also
was a very tricky time because there's lots of economic problems, social
problems there. Which are very interesting to see at first hand but very
difficult to work with as well. And the other thing was just from an
actors point of view. We're out there for a long time -- I wasn't in one
of the episodes we shot out there. But I was out there for weather cover
a lot and I got very bored cause there's nothing to do. And it used to
be a big resort, Yalta, when the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
And the Muscovite party faithful would use it as their Riviera, their
playground, and that's been cut off so it's not the prosperous place it
once was. And it's in the grip of lots of organized crime, so its an
interesting place. And it was an experience visiting there but not
always easy.
And then after that we were in Portugal, which was just a pleasure you
know. Its lovely, and right near Lisbon, so easy to get to from London.
And on a beach on the Atlantic with a swimming pool in the apartments and that was great.
And recently in Menorca, which was very much the same sort of thing. And
interesting to be there as well because the British
Navy has a long history there. So it was much more close to, you know,
where the action that we're shooting probably would have been… you know those ships
would have passed through Port Mulholland and places like that so that's kind of
interesting. But there were lovely places to
shoot and then back in England we're in Pinewood which is sort of
familiar territory for most of us.
[Pinewood at a guess, where filming was done.]
I: What's it like when you shoot the scenes on the ship -- are you
actually on a ship out somewhere?
(01:10:05.00)
Jamie: Well we've done it every which way, really. For the first four films
we made a couple of years ago, we were on the ship the whole time, which
involves leaving harbor at six in the morning, and you're out there for
twelve hours. Seasickness, you know, all the variables - weather. And
so it was very complicated, and the decision was made at the end, Andrew
Benson, the producer, took a decision that actually a lot of the shots
that we got when we're really on the ship you could've got on a land set.
So the next time we've done it they rigged up this extraordinary full
ship on a cliff bluff sort of thing. Which used the natural sea's
horizon and the ocean's horizon but we were actually about two hundred
feet up on a cliff on a full rigged set. Which they then shot in one
direction and then spun it round and did the reverses, so that has its
own complications because we did one scene half in one direction one week and then, three
weeks later it was do the reaction shots. I think my
stuff was in the later one, so we were running in the back of the lorry
trying to look at what we did the first time and all. So that made it
difficult too, but it works really well. And all the motions done with
the camera and with the actors rather than having, you know, actual
horizon changes. Which is -- I suppose if you looked at it through a
microscope, you'd spot that perhaps we weren't at sea. But when I first
watched the films I completely forgot about it. I thought I was gonna be
there going 'it doesn't look right it doesn't look right,' but it did and
most of the shots -- all the stuff on the "Renown" is a land based set.
I: What's it like when you shoot the - the rain scenes or when
there's…
(01:11:48.29)
Jamie: Horrible…
I: You have a huge rain scene…
(01:11:51.11)
Jamie: Mm-hm…
I:
And the mutiny…
(01:11:52.21)
Jamie: Mm-hm…
I:
What's that like?
(01:11:54.12)
Jamie: Um… wet. (laughs) I know (laughs) that its always
-- you know you can sense that these are gonna be the scenes that are-- very striking and
so
you -- everyone -- knows we have to do them. We have to do them well,
but we don't look forward to them, certainly the actors don't. It was a
night sequence as well, so it was a week's worth of work. All at night,
and you know with these rain machines they get you so wet, and you're wet for the whole
evening. And then those big costumes you never can dry out and so its pretty grim,
and it was actually also a horrendous week when we shot that in Menorca. The weather
hit anyway. So we actually had fall-on rain plus the rain machines. Plus these
gales and actually we
had a couple of sort of accidents that luckily nobody was injured by.
But huge towers were blown over and stuff and we're on the edge of a
cliff, so it was pretty hairy for a while but -- um -- what you see is
not all fake (laughs).
I: Well speaking about
that, tell me a little bit about what's involved.
I mean these are basically - these could be feature films.
(01:12:56.24)
Jamie: Yeah the…
I: You know because it has the same production quality…
(01:13:00.10)
Jamie: Mm-hm…
I: What's in…involved in putting in together and what are some of the
challenges?
(01:13:04.15)
Jamie: Well you know, they're huge. I mean when we started filming this
series there were a lot of doubters that it couldn't be done and
especially on a TV budget. But we don't really have a TV budget, I mean
it's a lot bigger than that, and then nobody has ever tried to shoot a TV
series, as far as I can tell, on these kind of ships. They built the
original ship especially for a TV show, you know. And that cost a
fortune and huge logistical problems. It was all done in Turkey. The
thing about shooting on water is that it's really unpredictable. I mean,
its hard enough to shoot on land, and harder when the land is not land,
its water. And when its moving and when the weather's unpredictable you know the
directions and when you've got ocean-going vessels coming by -- ferries and things -- and
doing a period piece, obviously you can't have any of that, or aircraft -- its very
difficult. And all those are
logistical problems, and then there's always … for an actor you know you
have to know a bit about the life. There's certain things that sailors
did and didn't do, so we have, you know, fantastic experts there. People
like John Mollo, who's the wardrobe designer who's a complete aficionado
of the period. And we use people like him, who just know everything
there is to know about the behavior or the kind of speech patterns we'd
use. Cause a lot of times we're improvising when we're doing the big
open scenes. And Andrew Grieve, the director, is a seagoing kind of a
chap so he helps us out as well. There are lots of difficulties but
yeah, I think we do have a sort of feature sort of feel to the whole
thing. And that's definitely because of the people we use, they all work
on films. I mean everyone involved has experience in movies and that's -
that's where we aspire to be.
I: You must have a huge crew…
(01:14:50.28)
Jamie: Yeah, its very big…yeah - very big…I mean it varies enormously and then
of course when we finish then the models start going underway and that's a completely
different crew and so -- yeah it is very big. And
especially with all the extras and stuff.
I: How long does it take to put the series together?
(01:15:08.04)
Jamie: Well the principal photography is probably the least of the problems.
I mean we did that in about twelve weeks. But then the problems around
it -- You know Andrew Benson the producer and Andrew Grieve -- they're
working on it the whole time, they never stop. I think Andrew Benson has
just had his first holiday in you know however many years, its been so
busy. And they never stop, they're always preparing, working on the new
scripts. Cause clearly its an ongoing thing that -- well, as long as
people watch they'll make them, I'm sure, so it doesn't stop.
I: Would you like to see it continue?
(01:15:43.01)
Jamie: Oh yeah - yeah, I enjoy the series.
I: What's the most interesting thing that you learned that you didn't
know before?
(01:15:49.18)
Jamie: Just… definitely on a very basic level how horrible it would have been
to have been on one of those ships, in a battle when you've got that much
lead weight flying through the air, at point blank range and I'm serious
-- these cannons would -- would go off. You know they're twenty yards
apart and you're looking right at it and the officers were expected to
stand there on the deck and not take cover. And they're wearing
different uniforms -- they were the first targets. Just recreating
battles where you're running around in absolute chaos with all these -- I
mean, its scary enough as an actor when you've got a hundred people on
the deck waving around swords. And they're all real swords and there's
muskets going off and you think well its - its not actually skill or
courage that will get you through this, its just luck, you know.
Hopefully you're walking through clean air but that's -- that's the thing
I mean, on a gut level. I've done a few war things now, and it blows me
away every time. The - the courage, and the just - just insane
randomness of the whole thing, cause we have this idea for movies that,
you know, the characters that we get to know sort of seem to survive and
the ones that show pluck and resolve they somehow make their own luck.
But that's - that's fiction and that's what I learned from doing this.
And also it's a tremendously romantic period and it would have been
tremendously exciting. And its probably -- if I was alive then I
probably would be on those ships, that's probably what I would've want to do but (sighs) I
don't know how you deal with it. And that's why playing Archie is fantastic because
he's not quite sure how you deal with it
either.
I: So you would want to have lived in that time?
(01:17:24.12)
Jamie: Well I don't know. I've because I've worked in this period now for
awhile I've done a bit more research. And read Patrick O'Brian, for
example, and there's something incredibly romantic and pioneering… and
they went to places I still haven't been to. And this was in the days
before airflight, that they would spend their lives on these ships and
these most extraordinary places, dealing with extraordinary people and
extraordinary circumstances. So yeah, it does have a romance about it,
but when you got to the grit of those battles and the limbs that were
lost and the surgery that was done, then -- then I'm not so sure I would
be able to deal with it.
I: Were you a fan of - of sea tales before working on the series or had
you read Hornblower before?
(01:18:13.03)
Jamie: Um I'd only read it when I was auditioning so no, I wasn't really, I
suppose. I mean I guess I was interested in the same way that everyone
is about things like that. Pirates and stuff -- but no, I didn't have
any practical knowledge really.
I: Well why do you think viewers have responded so well? I mean it's a
Emmy award winning…
(01:18:33.12)
Jamie: Mm-hm
I: acclaimed series…
(01:18:37.19)
Jamie: For lots of reasons. I mean I do think the period
is a remarkable
period in history when the world was changing very fast. We tend to
think about the twentieth century as being the most amazing. You know
leaps and bounds made in all sorts of fields, but if you look back
politically the world was completely changing. And that whole Napoleonic war was
about the foundation of Republicanism. Which is, you know, what this country is
built on and that the French and the Americans were - were pioneering in that direction
and this was a complicated thing. It was the monarchy in Britain fighting their
nearest neighbors and their oldest enemies. And the alliances were constantly
changing. The world was being formed. All the trade routes were being fought
for, everything is happening, it's a melting pot. And at the same time you have some
of the best stories that have ever been told. And Hornblower is an amazing character
and I think in these series we do a good job to enhance the stories as well. Cause
-- obviously we do make adaptations, the producers do decide to change things, but with
the actual C.S. Forester originals they have to, because a lot of them are short stories
and they have to be fleshed out a bit. And I think they do that tremendously
responsibly with the Hornblower estate. And I'm not patting myself on the back but
patting my colleagues on the back -- I think they get wonderful actors to come in and
bring the stories to life. So from top to bottom -- you know, the costume designs
are impeccable, everything is just quality, and if you're working with quality material
you -- fingers crossed -- shouldn't be going too far wrong.
I: Tell me a little bit
about what its like working with Ioan?
(01:20:26.29)
Jamie: Yeah - yeah Ioan (pronounces the name) It's a pleasure -- absolute
pleasure he's one of my best friends, so it's great to work with him. I
didn't know him at all when I started working and we sort of just --
obviously the characters are best friends -- so that was easy to do.
Cause all my scenes are with him, and it's been very interesting watching
him grow and develop. Cause you know, he's done a lot of good work, but that was, I
suppose, his big break, I think he'd say, and its been
interesting to see him evolve as an actor and as a person as well as
within the series. And he has, immensely, and I think his work in the
last two you know is so good -- I'm not saying he wasn't good before,
because he was always good. But he's brought a different level of
complexity and his character's got a warmth and a wit about him that is
new and it's -- for me as a contemporary of his it's fantastic to see
someone flourish like that. And as a dear friend I couldn't be happier
for him.
I: As an actor is it - is doing a period piece closer to theatre at all?
I suppose it can be perceived to be that because the language is somehow
removed from the way we'd speak today. But honestly, we try as hard as
we can to avoid the theatricality. I suppose people will see it,
especially here, because you know British actors are rooted in the
theatre and most of the actors that you see started off as theatre
actors, and they bring bring that certain craftsmanship to a theatrical
performance which has to have a discipline that sometimes you can get
away without in screen acting. So if it does, I think its more because
of the actors that we use, but then I think that every performance in
these films is brutally real. And - and that's the most important thing
that's all we care about. So I mean that
theatricality is just something that's ingrained in some of us and from
our training, but certain times the director will tap you on the shoulder
and say "a little less RSC, please." So the voice has to come back and
you have to remember that you're performing to a lens which is only a
couple of feet away, instead of to somebody sitting at the back of the
theatre, but hopefully we don't we don't do too much of that. Although
we can (laughs) sometimes…
I: Well what's coming up next for you?
(01:23:04.29)
Jamie: Well right after Hornblower I went off to to do Band of Brothers,
which is an HBO show, which will be out here I guess at the end of the
year sometime… I'm not sure. (Sighs) so that's the next thing that will
be seen that I've done, at least over here in the States. Other than
that, I've literally just come over here; I'm in LA now. And I'm here
for another month and just trying to do some meetings. So I don't
actually know what my next project's going to be, but the next one to air
will be Band of Brothers.
I: What do you think of LA?
(01:23:41.12)
Jamie: (Sighs) I really like it, you know. I have to be honest I - I've been
out here now three - three times. And I think there's that expectation
that it's not gonna be real, you know, there's gonna be something not
quite -- I don't know, I was geared up not to like it. But I do like it,
very much. I like the lifestyle, I love Southern California, and I like
the people's attitude to life. I think its contagious and I'd like to
spend time here, certainly, over the years.
I: Good we hope so too…
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