Philip Glenister and Marc Warren: Doing it for themselves
Actors Philip Glenister and Marc Warren have taken a proactive approach to getting the sorts of roles that interest them. They speak to Matthew Hemley about seeing their own TV series, Mad Dogs through from start to finish.
What should actors do when they find the scripts that are coming their way are badly written or fail to ignite their interest? Do they a) swallow their pride, take the job anyway and hope they will like the end result, b) turn the work down and hope something better will come their way or c) find other like-minded performers and create the work they actually want to do?
The answer – or at least the answer according to Philip Glenister and Marc Warren – is c). When the pair realised the scripts they were being sent were, to quote Glenister, “run of the mill and boring”, they decided to get together and come up with a drama that they would actually be keen to appear in.
The result was Mad Dogs, a new Sky1 series which started last week, and which also stars Max Beesley and John Simm. It is described as a “surreal psychological drama” about four men who have been friends since school.
Reclining on a sofa in the luxury of the Covent Garden Hotel, a very hungry Warren and Glenister (the interview is, rather inconveniently for the actors, being conducted at lunch time and the pair are eagerly awaiting some food to be brought to them) explain how the drama was created.
Glenister, the more chatty of the two, says: “It came about through us really. It was basically about finding a vehicle for me, Marc and John to do something together. We had worked together on different projects but we felt it would be nice to do something we could be equal in. That is how it came about.” He adds: “The stuff Marc and I were being sent was run of the mill, boring. So you think, rather than waiting for the phone to ring, you have to get up and make your own opportunities. We are three actors in demand, and hopefully respected, so we can pool our resources and hopefully come up with something [we want to do]. It’s been very satisfying and it’s something we would like to do more of as actors – taking an idea to a company – whether that is together or as individuals.”
In the case of Mad Dogs, the company that Glenister and Warren approached with the idea for the drama was Left Bank Pictures, the production house founded by the acclaimed producer Andy Harries, which is also behind the dramas Wallander and Strike Back. Warren had devised the initial story about the four friends in the drama but, after some discussion with Left Bank, it was decided that writer Cris Cole should be brought on board to help shape the series.
“The original idea Marc had would have worked, but it was about a band, and it was felt that it had been done a lot. So Cris moulded what Marc had written about the friendship of these guys,” Glenister says, before Warren takes up the story. We then got Max Beesley involved, which made the whole thing an attractive proposition and it felt like an easy package to flog,” he says. “We put it to the BBC, ITV and Sky, but it was Sky which came up with an offer we liked. And that is how it got made.” He adds that he and his co-stars stayed heavily involved in the development process of the drama, which he describes as “fascinating."
"I had never done that before,” Warren says. “You sit and have meetings over many months and we shaped it, and discussed it and got the drama how we wanted it.” In the series, the four central characters are flown to Majorca by a wealthy friend called Alvo – played by Ben Chaplin – to stay with him in his luxurious villa. Alvo is celebrating an early retirement and initially the friends enjoy time together, reminiscing about their past. However, when Alvo is assassinated by a man wearing a Tony Blair mask at the end of the first episode, the four friends find themselves entangled in a “web of deception and murder”.
For Warren, the interesting thing about the series is the relationship between the four men. “It’s not about four individuals, but the four of us together,” he says. “That is how it works, and you don’t see us on our own at all. There is a chemistry that is quite dynamic and unusual. And we are put in extraordinary situations – on boats, in villas – and we do some really horrible stuff.”
Glenister adds: “What happens at the end of episode one acts as a catalyst for all of them, and what they decide to do with their lives and the routes they take.” Given that the drama has four men in the lead roles, it would be easy for female audiences to dismiss this series as a drama created with male viewers in mind. But Warren is keen to point out that this is not the case.
He says: “I think the danger is people will think it’s a gangster film or a lads’ film, but it’s not really any of those. It’s just an unusual story and we would not want to be pigeonholed into any of those genres.” He adds: “There is stuff in this people won’t have seen before and I just hope people go with it. I think it’s fantastic and it was a rare opportunity to be able to do something like this.”
A second series of the drama is already being developed and for Warren, who admits he does not have any other work lined up as we speak, a further outing of the drama would be most welcome. Both actors acknowledge that decreasing budgets for television and the arts in general mean difficult times ahead for actors. Glenister says: “When you have 24 people in a year at drama school, you know 24 people are not going to make a living [out of acting]. That is the brutal reality of it – you are lucky if four of you do.”
Warren chips in: “You only have to get a copy of Spotlight to realise how fortunate you are.” Warren’s own fortunes changed when he was 30, when he got his first big break with The Vice. Most of his twenties, he says, consisted of “bits and bobs” of work – enough to live on, but nothing that really brought him into the mainstream. Meanwhile, Glenister who trained at Central School of Speech and Drama, and is perhaps best known for playing Gene Hunt in the hit BBC series Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.
When he graduated, he says he did bits and pieces in theatre, but got most of his work on television – a medium that drama schools didn’t train actors for enough, he insists. Glenister says he tried to address this deficiency when he was training. "I used to say, why are we not doing more with the National Film and Television School? Because they are the future film-makers and we are the future actors and there should be some kind of collusion, so then they will learn about our side of the camera and we will learn about their side,” he says. “That way, when we come to work together in the future, we will be on some kind of level footing." He adds: “I never understood why that was never encouraged more and even now it is something that students should be encouraged to do. I don’t see why it can’t be.”
What should actors do when they find the scripts that are coming their way are badly written or fail to ignite their interest? Do they a) swallow their pride, take the job anyway and hope they will like the end result, b) turn the work down and hope something better will come their way or c) find other like-minded performers and create the work they actually want to do?
The answer – or at least the answer according to Philip Glenister and Marc Warren – is c). When the pair realised the scripts they were being sent were, to quote Glenister, “run of the mill and boring”, they decided to get together and come up with a drama that they would actually be keen to appear in.
The result was Mad Dogs, a new Sky1 series which started last week, and which also stars Max Beesley and John Simm. It is described as a “surreal psychological drama” about four men who have been friends since school.
Reclining on a sofa in the luxury of the Covent Garden Hotel, a very hungry Warren and Glenister (the interview is, rather inconveniently for the actors, being conducted at lunch time and the pair are eagerly awaiting some food to be brought to them) explain how the drama was created.
Glenister, the more chatty of the two, says: “It came about through us really. It was basically about finding a vehicle for me, Marc and John to do something together. We had worked together on different projects but we felt it would be nice to do something we could be equal in. That is how it came about.” He adds: “The stuff Marc and I were being sent was run of the mill, boring. So you think, rather than waiting for the phone to ring, you have to get up and make your own opportunities. We are three actors in demand, and hopefully respected, so we can pool our resources and hopefully come up with something [we want to do]. It’s been very satisfying and it’s something we would like to do more of as actors – taking an idea to a company – whether that is together or as individuals.”
In the case of Mad Dogs, the company that Glenister and Warren approached with the idea for the drama was Left Bank Pictures, the production house founded by the acclaimed producer Andy Harries, which is also behind the dramas Wallander and Strike Back. Warren had devised the initial story about the four friends in the drama but, after some discussion with Left Bank, it was decided that writer Cris Cole should be brought on board to help shape the series.
“The original idea Marc had would have worked, but it was about a band, and it was felt that it had been done a lot. So Cris moulded what Marc had written about the friendship of these guys,” Glenister says, before Warren takes up the story. We then got Max Beesley involved, which made the whole thing an attractive proposition and it felt like an easy package to flog,” he says. “We put it to the BBC, ITV and Sky, but it was Sky which came up with an offer we liked. And that is how it got made.” He adds that he and his co-stars stayed heavily involved in the development process of the drama, which he describes as “fascinating."
"I had never done that before,” Warren says. “You sit and have meetings over many months and we shaped it, and discussed it and got the drama how we wanted it.” In the series, the four central characters are flown to Majorca by a wealthy friend called Alvo – played by Ben Chaplin – to stay with him in his luxurious villa. Alvo is celebrating an early retirement and initially the friends enjoy time together, reminiscing about their past. However, when Alvo is assassinated by a man wearing a Tony Blair mask at the end of the first episode, the four friends find themselves entangled in a “web of deception and murder”.
For Warren, the interesting thing about the series is the relationship between the four men. “It’s not about four individuals, but the four of us together,” he says. “That is how it works, and you don’t see us on our own at all. There is a chemistry that is quite dynamic and unusual. And we are put in extraordinary situations – on boats, in villas – and we do some really horrible stuff.”
Glenister adds: “What happens at the end of episode one acts as a catalyst for all of them, and what they decide to do with their lives and the routes they take.” Given that the drama has four men in the lead roles, it would be easy for female audiences to dismiss this series as a drama created with male viewers in mind. But Warren is keen to point out that this is not the case.
He says: “I think the danger is people will think it’s a gangster film or a lads’ film, but it’s not really any of those. It’s just an unusual story and we would not want to be pigeonholed into any of those genres.” He adds: “There is stuff in this people won’t have seen before and I just hope people go with it. I think it’s fantastic and it was a rare opportunity to be able to do something like this.”
A second series of the drama is already being developed and for Warren, who admits he does not have any other work lined up as we speak, a further outing of the drama would be most welcome. Both actors acknowledge that decreasing budgets for television and the arts in general mean difficult times ahead for actors. Glenister says: “When you have 24 people in a year at drama school, you know 24 people are not going to make a living [out of acting]. That is the brutal reality of it – you are lucky if four of you do.”
Warren chips in: “You only have to get a copy of Spotlight to realise how fortunate you are.” Warren’s own fortunes changed when he was 30, when he got his first big break with The Vice. Most of his twenties, he says, consisted of “bits and bobs” of work – enough to live on, but nothing that really brought him into the mainstream. Meanwhile, Glenister who trained at Central School of Speech and Drama, and is perhaps best known for playing Gene Hunt in the hit BBC series Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.
When he graduated, he says he did bits and pieces in theatre, but got most of his work on television – a medium that drama schools didn’t train actors for enough, he insists. Glenister says he tried to address this deficiency when he was training. "I used to say, why are we not doing more with the National Film and Television School? Because they are the future film-makers and we are the future actors and there should be some kind of collusion, so then they will learn about our side of the camera and we will learn about their side,” he says. “That way, when we come to work together in the future, we will be on some kind of level footing." He adds: “I never understood why that was never encouraged more and even now it is something that students should be encouraged to do. I don’t see why it can’t be.”
Original article can be found here.
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