Post by canadia on Jun 5, 2010 17:19:22 GMT -5
Tony Curran is a Scottish actor and is a old friend of Gerard's and this is a very interesting indepth interview of a good working character actor.
Here is the interview
www.reelscotland.com/?p=3354
He talks about the accent and accents [he plays Vincent Van Gogh in a Dr. Who Episode]
Interviewer: So, you haven’t gone for a Dutch accent in your role. Is his Scottish accent explained?
I remember at college I was doing some Shakespeare class, with a woman called Janet Suzman. I was doing a Benedict speech and a lot of it was talking about women and how he relates to them. From the rehearsal I was doing it in a very Received Pronunciation accent. After a while I was working with Ted Argent, who was the head of RSAMD at the time, who said to me, “Tony, why don’t you just do it in your own accent?” I was like, “really?”
We’ve got these wonderful, expressive, soulful, flavourful accents in Scotland – or in the UK as a whole; regional accents. I mean, Shakespeare back in the day they wouldn’t have been speaking [adopts RP accent] like that, you know? They would have had these wonderful regional accents to speak the verse and the prose.
For me, to do a part like Vincent van Gogh in my own accent was like a full circle from drama school. As long as you get the sentiment, and the nuances, and the spirit of the man, or woman, or whoever you’re playing, then it can be a good thing to do it in your own accent. I think that’s what I’m saying, it’s not a hindrance!
To be honest, when I’m over here speaking in English, American, Russian accents, the more that I can do in my own accent is great. There’s a universality that sometimes has to come to TV or film, where the individual doesn’t have to have this generic sound to him, or her. It can be the flavour of it. Our accent is refined, and it’s cool, and it’s different, and it’s sexy, and it’s unique. There’s five million of us in the country, but there’s a Hell of a lot more of us around the world. It’s a shout out for the Celts!
You worked with Gerard Butler on Beowulf & Grendel. Is there a network of Scottish actors out in LA you get together with?
It’s funny, me and Gerry went to Scottish Youth Theatre together in 1985. We’ve known each other since we were 14 and I’m chuffed to bits for him. I think it’s great. I see him now and again out here but I don’t really hang out with, or see, many Scottish actors that are out here.
Now and again you meet the odd British actor here-and-there. I did a film called Golf in the Kingdom last year with Malcolm McDowell and Julian Sands, which was a job that got me started playing golf. David O’Hara, he was in that as well, I see him sometimes over here.
There’s not really a core where I hang out and we sing Flower of Scotland or quote some Burns! I sometimes wish there was – more friends of mine from the UK had made the move over here. I think that would be nice.
The celebrity thing is sort of lost on me, to be perfectly honest. It’s nice to work over here, to have California, to have the beach and the mountains. The quality of life over here I think is fantastic but there’s a lot more to Los Angeles than the ‘it’ life; all that sort of nonsense. It’s a great place to live if you’ve got friends that you love and people that you like and that’s a part of it that I’ve focused on more than ‘I want to be famous!’
Don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to keep chipping away doing jobs because recently it’s been quite tough for writers, directors, producers – everybody in the business. It was hard for everybody. I don’t take it for granted I’m working, put it that way!
_______________________________________
He is supposed to be cast in this Crossmaglens movie, about the IRA, that Gerry is supposed to be replacing Ben Kingsley as an IRA commander, yet Tony makes no mention of the film as his next project and I just saw Ben Kingsley in a movie about the IRA this afternoon, "Fifty Dead Men Walking" well I saw a piece of it except he was an Belfast police officer. You forget that Ben Kingsley has hair and doesn't actually look like Ghandi all the time. Hard to believe Ben Kingsley would sign up to do 2 IRA movies in a row either.
Here is the interview
www.reelscotland.com/?p=3354
He talks about the accent and accents [he plays Vincent Van Gogh in a Dr. Who Episode]
Interviewer: So, you haven’t gone for a Dutch accent in your role. Is his Scottish accent explained?
I remember at college I was doing some Shakespeare class, with a woman called Janet Suzman. I was doing a Benedict speech and a lot of it was talking about women and how he relates to them. From the rehearsal I was doing it in a very Received Pronunciation accent. After a while I was working with Ted Argent, who was the head of RSAMD at the time, who said to me, “Tony, why don’t you just do it in your own accent?” I was like, “really?”
We’ve got these wonderful, expressive, soulful, flavourful accents in Scotland – or in the UK as a whole; regional accents. I mean, Shakespeare back in the day they wouldn’t have been speaking [adopts RP accent] like that, you know? They would have had these wonderful regional accents to speak the verse and the prose.
For me, to do a part like Vincent van Gogh in my own accent was like a full circle from drama school. As long as you get the sentiment, and the nuances, and the spirit of the man, or woman, or whoever you’re playing, then it can be a good thing to do it in your own accent. I think that’s what I’m saying, it’s not a hindrance!
To be honest, when I’m over here speaking in English, American, Russian accents, the more that I can do in my own accent is great. There’s a universality that sometimes has to come to TV or film, where the individual doesn’t have to have this generic sound to him, or her. It can be the flavour of it. Our accent is refined, and it’s cool, and it’s different, and it’s sexy, and it’s unique. There’s five million of us in the country, but there’s a Hell of a lot more of us around the world. It’s a shout out for the Celts!
You worked with Gerard Butler on Beowulf & Grendel. Is there a network of Scottish actors out in LA you get together with?
It’s funny, me and Gerry went to Scottish Youth Theatre together in 1985. We’ve known each other since we were 14 and I’m chuffed to bits for him. I think it’s great. I see him now and again out here but I don’t really hang out with, or see, many Scottish actors that are out here.
Now and again you meet the odd British actor here-and-there. I did a film called Golf in the Kingdom last year with Malcolm McDowell and Julian Sands, which was a job that got me started playing golf. David O’Hara, he was in that as well, I see him sometimes over here.
There’s not really a core where I hang out and we sing Flower of Scotland or quote some Burns! I sometimes wish there was – more friends of mine from the UK had made the move over here. I think that would be nice.
The celebrity thing is sort of lost on me, to be perfectly honest. It’s nice to work over here, to have California, to have the beach and the mountains. The quality of life over here I think is fantastic but there’s a lot more to Los Angeles than the ‘it’ life; all that sort of nonsense. It’s a great place to live if you’ve got friends that you love and people that you like and that’s a part of it that I’ve focused on more than ‘I want to be famous!’
Don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to keep chipping away doing jobs because recently it’s been quite tough for writers, directors, producers – everybody in the business. It was hard for everybody. I don’t take it for granted I’m working, put it that way!
_______________________________________
He is supposed to be cast in this Crossmaglens movie, about the IRA, that Gerry is supposed to be replacing Ben Kingsley as an IRA commander, yet Tony makes no mention of the film as his next project and I just saw Ben Kingsley in a movie about the IRA this afternoon, "Fifty Dead Men Walking" well I saw a piece of it except he was an Belfast police officer. You forget that Ben Kingsley has hair and doesn't actually look like Ghandi all the time. Hard to believe Ben Kingsley would sign up to do 2 IRA movies in a row either.
