Charles Dance: ‘I’m not a movie star, I’m a working actor’

“We’re all wracked with insecurity, paranoid from time to time — not very often, it’s the insecurity mostly — and we like to be loved.” The affirmative tones of Charles Dance, 73, offer little inducement for dissent. If the actor were not baring his soul like this, he could be mistaken for the stiff patriarch of a murderous dynasty in Westeros. “[Of] course we do,” he continues. “A standing ovation is almost as good as an orgasm.”

We’re at his house on the hottest day of the year. It is in a dappled part of north London and it feels gently arty inside — no thrones. Now and then a scorching breeze wafts up from the garden and ruffles Dance’s shirt, which is blue and linen with the top four buttons undone. From what I can see — which is a lot — he is lean and tanned in a pinky-gold kind of way. He looks like a man in his prime.

At least, he is in a purple patch. Four seasons of Game of Thrones (2011-14) — in which Dance played Tywin Lannister, TV’s most terrifying dad — have helped. (His performance is splendidly brutal — the highlight is him being shot on the privy by his son.) He starred recently in the excellent Fanny Lye Deliver’d, in which he plays another scary father. Before that he appeared in the blockbusting Godzilla: King of the Monsters (no one’s finest moment). And soon he’ll be William Randolph Hearst, the inspiration for Citizen Kane, in David Fincher’s Mank, starring Gary Oldman. It’s a “great part” and a “great film”, says Dance, who acted in Fincher’s first movie Alien 3 (1992). His character was the only one to have sex with warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) — “yes”, he says fondly — and Dance was impressed by the debutant director. “He’s a genius, actually. A demanding genius, but he’s a genius.”

Next up will be Lord Kitchener in The King’s Man. Matthew Vaughn’s latest film, the third in the Kingsman series, is a period spy comedy starring Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hollander and Rhys Ifans. Is it good? “I think it’s great,” says Dance, who isn’t always so effusive about the stuff he’s in. “I sent Matthew a text message, actually, I said: ‘It’s fucking wonderful.’ There are some wonderfully over-the-top performances in it.” Including his? “I tried not to be too over-the-top. I just did a lot of moustache acting.”

Vaughn is a “clever guy”, Dance adds. “He’s his own man, very much so, has his own way of doing things . . . He doesn’t delegate. He’s running the show . . . He’s just positive, positive, positive all the time, knows exactly what he wants.”

One of Dance’s USPs is his talent for contorting his face — and voice — into the perfect expression of plummy English arrogance. From Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown (1984 — his big break on TV) to Lord Mountbatten in The Crown (2019), posh parts have been a staple of the Dance repertoire for more than 35 years. His Lord Stockbridge in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001) — in which he is deathlessly withering to Tom Hollander’s diminutive character — is the pinnacle of this exquisite showreel.

Indeed, he takes to these roles with such aplomb that it’s easy to forget that Dance wasn’t born into a family seething with lethal aristocrats. He grew up in Plymouth; his mum was a cook and his dad an electrical engineer. His father fought in the second Boer war and died in his seventies when Dance was a toddler. It’s also easy to imagine that real-life Dance must be perpetually hacked off about something, like the people he plays. Today, he seems friendly, even normal. How does he do it on screen? “Well, I pretend,” says Dance.

How much of him is in these parts — the delectable Josslyn Hay in White Mischief (1987), for example, Stockbridge or Mountbatten? “No, come on, I pretend. We all do in this business.” Is there nothing of Charles Dance in Tywin Lannister? “A lack of patience, sometimes.” Is he reaching that point right now? “No.” (He has laser blue eyes.) He comes from a generation, he says, who can chat about supper one minute and switch into character the next. Essentially, it’s technique.

But preparing for his role as an MI6 colonel in Godzilla must be different from rehearsing Coriolanus at the Royal Shakespeare Company, as Dance did in 1989? “With parts like that, it’s incumbent on me to eat properly, sleep properly, prepare.” Does he delve into his soul for such roles? “No. As I keep saying, I pretend. If I’m playing a murderer, I don’t have to go out and slit somebody’s throat.”

Looking back, would he have liked to play local vets? “A local vet?” Or Winnie the Pooh, I suggest, something a little more benign? “No, I don’t think so.”

Is he easy to work with? “There are times when, as an actor, you have to look after number one because finally, it’s this” — he points at his handsome, glaring face — “that’s on the screen.” That sounds fair. There are tougher gigs in life than acting but acting is still tough. Mostly, actors have no control over what they do. Much of life is wasted applying for jobs that never materialise. With rare exceptions — such as Maggie Smith — seniority dwindles with age. And it’s impossible not to take it all personally — rejection, criticism, billing, everything.

Moreover, Dance has had to graft. He was approaching 40 when he got The Jewel in the Crown. He stammered in his teens. “My mother took me to speech therapists — physically, there was nothing wrong. There must have been some kind of emotional trauma, I don’t know.” Like what? “No idea. But I could never be seen to be a ‘stammerer’ and I used to spend a long time making up the most complicated sentences to get round words I knew I couldn’t manage.”

Later he went to Leicester College of Arts, dropped out (“I was really bored by trying to come up with house styles for British Telecom”) and took private acting lessons once a week. “I worked as a labourer during the day,” he says. “I was a plumber’s mate . . . you dig the trench, the plumber does the clever work with the pipe and you fill the trench up again.” Was he good at it? “Not bad. I knew how to dig and use a pickaxe. ‘Up high and down heavy,’” he says, in his best Plymouth accent. “That was the advice for the pickaxe.” He looks like he could still wield one.

You can’t just “want” to be an actor — you have to “need” to be part of a community from whom you get inspiration, energy, affection

His drama lessons were focused on technique. “Trying to get the voice better, because I used to make a terrible noise, a cross between a Plymouth accent and a Birmingham accent — terrible sound and very lazy. I knew nothing. Absolutely nothing.” But why should he have known anything about acting? “Some people have an instinct I didn’t seem to have. I had this hard graft.”

Why did he think he could do it? “I had ambition and enthusiasm and probably a misplaced and inflated opinion of my own ability.” His teachers were less forthcoming about his gifts: “The most lavish praise I ever got was ‘not bad.’” You can’t just “want” to be an actor — you have to “need” it, he says. Is it a need to be seen in front of lots of people, to be famous? “No. It’s the need to be part of a community from whom you get inspiration, energy, affection,” he replies. “And if an actor denies that, they’re lying.”

Does Dance like criticism in the press? “If it’s constructive, yes, absolutely.” Does he read it? After all, few actors do. “I don’t read too many notices, to be honest with you, but if somebody comes round to the dressing room — if there’s somebody I know and respect — and says, ‘Look, can I tell you something . . . I didn’t enjoy tonight, that scene . . . ’ If somebody gives me a bit of constructive [feedback] . . . ‘Oh, right, OK, I’ll think about it.’” Do many people do that? “Not many, not many,” he ruminates. It must be a brave soul who buttonholes Dance straight after a show and tells him that his performance sucked.

We move on to this year’s lockdown. “I actually don’t mind my own company,” he says. He has affable neighbours? “Yes, we talk over the fence . . . And every Thursday night, we would go out and we would clap the National Health Service. What have they been offered, a 2.5 per cent pay rise? It’s disgusting.” Dance classifies himself as “a bit left of centre-left” and summarises Britain’s present predicament as follows: “We’re in a ship that’s being steered by a fucking lunatic. By a bumbling buffoon, actually.”

With social distancing, is theatre dead, I wonder? “God knows. A 900-seat theatre is going to be forced to play to 300, probably. Economically, it’s really, really difficult.” To me, it looks impossible without state subsidies or ticket prices tripling. It’s particularly difficult to envisage happy futures for London’s Victorian theatres, all velvet and no leg room. “Most of those theatres in the West End are rat-infested holes anyway,” says Dance.

Sometimes I’m confident, sometimes I’m not. I’m like a lot of actors, by nature, I’m principally an introvert

We move on to the #MeToo movement. Had he suspected Weinstein? “No. I didn’t know Harvey Weinstein personally. I’ve never met anybody who was a victim of Harvey Weinstein. There were certainly people who used to say, ‘My god, he’s a sleazebag’ and stuff, and ‘Have you ever been chased round the room by Harvey Weinstein?’”

But Dance has observed a shift in culture. “I’ve noticed things like people reluctant to make a joke about somebody’s legs or their arse . . . I’ve heard women say ‘God, can’t we flirt any more?’” There are some people who think Weinstein’s films are now tainted artistically. Does he agree? “No, I don’t think [that] any more than I would not listen to Wagner because he was a rampant anti-Semite.”

Dance exudes confidence both on screen and at home in his sexy blue linen. How confident is he really? “Sometimes I’m confident, sometimes I’m not. I’m like a lot of actors, by nature, I’m principally an introvert.” How ambitious is he? “Not nearly ambitious enough, probably.”

In 1981, Dance played a cameo goon called Claus in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only. A few years later, he was asked to audition to play Bond himself. He refused. “Oh god,” he says, when I bring it up. “My agent at the time rang me — it was a hot July day — and she said, ‘It’s happened, darling.’ And I said, ‘What’s happened?’ She said, ‘You’ve been asked to test for Bond.’ I said, ‘Really?’ She said, ‘I urge you not to do it.’ I said, ‘Why is that?’ She said, ‘One, well, think how you’ll feel if you don’t get it, and, two, I think it will limit your career.’”

Turning down the chance of Bond is a decision that could haunt an actor for ever. I suggest that Dance should have had a better agent. “I think she was being kind,” he says. “I had not nearly enough experience for something like that — and I would have fucked it up.” Does he still think that now? “Yes, I do.” The screen test or the actual part if he’d got it? “If I’d got the part. It’s a big thing.”

Does he regard himself as a success? “As a success? I think I’ve been very lucky, and I think a lot of people would look at my career and say, ‘Yes, you’ve been a successful actor.’ I’m not a movie star, I’m a working actor,” he says. “I’ve been a supporting actor most of my career. You could call what I did in White Mischief a leading role, in Plenty [1985 — starring opposite Meryl Streep], Pascali’s Island [1988 — his best film], but the rest of them are kind of major supporting parts or impressive cameos . . . The thing is I just like working — I don’t like being out of work.”

Does he like being famous? “No, not really. No.” Would he rather not be famous? “I would rather be looked over than overlooked, that’s for sure. But I find the whole selfie business a real pain in the arse, actually.” Does it happen often? “Yes, it does. And it depends on the mood I’m in.”

Would he advise his young daughter to become an actor? “No, I wouldn’t advise anybody to become an actor.” Why not? “Because the rejection is horrible,” he says, and most actors are out of work. To survive, you must have that “need”. Dance has survived.

Alexander Gilmour is the FT’s Food & Drink editor. “The King’s Man” is in UK cinemas February 26 2021

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