Ariyon Bakare: ‘I am a storyteller. It is my ethos. It is who I am. Ariyon Bakare: storyteller’

It has been almost a decade since Ariyon Bakare performed on stage. The 52-year-old actor’s last show was a revival of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away at London’s Young Vic in 2014. Since then, he has become a familiar face on screen, with recurring roles in the series His Dark Materials, Carnival Row and The Mosquito Coast, as well as film appearances in Jupiter Ascending and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

“That is just the trajectory I have been on,” Bakare says. “I was focusing on setting up my profile that way. I went across the pond and worked in the US quite a lot. Really great screen projects just kept coming up. I was also waiting for the right show to come along to get me back into theatre.”

That show has now presented itself. Bakare is about to appear in French writer Yasmina Reza’s hit play God of Carnage, which made its UK premiere in a translation by Christopher Hampton in 2008, and is now being revived at the Lyric Hammersmith in London by director Nicholai La Barrie. Not only is it Bakare’s first stage appearance in nine years, but it is also a comedy, something the actor has rarely done before.

“When Nicholai asked me to do it, I said: ‘Are you sure?’ ” Bakare laughs. “I laid it out to him. I said I had not done theatre in a long time. I said I had never really done comedy. I said I would have to analyse the play in an intellectual, dramatic way instead. And he said that was exactly what one should do with a comedy like this. That made me feel more comfortable coming back to theatre.”

Born in 1971, Bakare grew up in London. His teenage years were troubled – at 15, he fell out with his father and spent several weeks on the streets – but he managed to nurture his nascent love for theatre by reading as many plays as he could, and by sneaking into shows without a ticket.

“I would go to the National Theatre, wait outside for everyone to come out at the interval, then go in with them for the second half,” Bakare says. “So I have seen the second half of a lot of plays.”

At 17, Bakare moved to New York to train as a dancer, but soon discovered he preferred the emotional intensity of theatre. He returned to London, trained at the now-defunct Drama Centre London, and his subsequent stage career has included work at the Royal  Shakespeare Company, London’s Royal Court, Riverside Studios and elsewhere. He writes, too, and dabbles with street and portrait photography.

“I never sit still,” Bakare says. “If I am not working, I feel very, very depressed. I like telling stories. I am a storyteller, fundamentally. That is my ethos. That is who I am. Ariyon Bakare, storyteller.”