A crazy week made the already-arduous task of interview transcription tougher than usual, and that paired with just how goddamn delightful it is to hear Timothy Spall speak made me decide to take a different approach with this interview.
Below you’ll find Mr. Spall’s awesome, thoughtful answers to my questions in audio chunks below. I’ve split it up so you can take it bit by bit if you’d like, but you can listen to or download the entire interview right here if you can stand to hear my goofy voice and want to ingest the whole ~15m interview podcast style.
While Mr. Spall has a long running, consistent career as an excellent character actor of screen and stage, he’s most recently been introduced to a new generation via the Harry Potter films and his work with Tim Burton. He continues on with project both large and small, and here the film in question is Assassin’s Bullet, a pulpy crime thriller starring Christian Slater, Donald Sutherland, and Elika Portnoy. The story is wrapped up in topics like psychotherapy and identity, which we touch on just a bit in the interview, along with discussing how he handles his career and chooses his projects.
Assassin’s Bullet hits theaters today, August 3rd, with a DVD following on the 14th. Pre-Order it from CHUD right here.
Trailer:
First up we discussed his character and how he got involved with the project…
Then I asked if he works to read scripts for the first time with as clear a mind as possible, or if he allows his thoughts and surroundings to stay in his mind, challenging the script to hook him…
Following that I asked if he was interested exclusively in roles that challenge him, or if he’ll work with a less interesting role if it’s part of a more complex, interesting whole.
Here I asked how much consideration he puts into the balance and pace of his career, in terms of taking on blockbusters, a quick pulpy thriller like Assassin’s Bullet, and meatier dramatic productions.
At this point I brought up a rather clunky question alluding to this interview in which he discussed the decline of British TV drama, but I kind of put him on the spot with the topic, so he felt the need to clarify. Still, he got into some interesting stuff about how the BBC has changed over the years.
Finally, I tried to get a sense of how much technology was a part of Mr. Spall’s life, and found that he’s a recent iPad convert and is quite enthusiastic about the tools he’s discovered on the web.
So that’s the interview! Thanks again for checking it out and I hope you enjoyed Mr. Spall’s delightful way of thinking about things as much as I did.
Cheers!