Olivier Award-winning Brendan Coyle is best known on television for playing Mr Bates – a role especially written for him – in ITV’s global hit series Downton Abbey, and Robert Timmins in three series of the popular BBC drama Lark Rise to Candleford. He appears in Arthur Miller’s play The Price at Bath Theatre Royal until 25th August. In this interview he talks extensively  about The Price but also, of course, about his roles in the two popular television series.

 

How would you sum up the character of Victor Franz?

He’s a middle-aged man who has reached a crossroads in his life. He’s a very honourable man, a very faithful man, and he’s a New York police officer who has become a sergeant after 28 years, which belies his upbringing as the son of a multi-millionaire industrialist who lost everything in the 1929 crash. So there’s a sort of dichotomy between what he appears to be and who he was brought up to be. He’s in a marriage that has moments of happiness and connection with his wife, but his wife is aspirational and is disillusioned with the life choices he has made. He’s carrying a great deal of contention with a brother with whom he hasn’t communicated since their father’s death 16 years before. He’s at a place of great indecision in his life but he’s also a generous and decent man.

What particular challenges does the role present for you?

The biggest challenge is to master the journey of the character from a seemingly happy encounter with his wife at the top of the play to a place of great conflict with his brother, but it resolves itself beautifully in a way. The character has a New York accent, which takes work to master, and also it’s about getting on top of it by learning the lines, because there’s a lot of lines, and finding the right structure in the rehearsal room.

What have you learned about New York cops from researching the role?

It’s interesting because before you’d have to go to the library and make all these attempts and efforts to research parts. Now what’s available to you is amazing. I’ve been looking at a lot of police training videos from 1968 on YouTube. I can’t stop watching them. Even though he’d have been a very different man to these cops, because he was college-educated and joined the force temporarily to feed his old man, these are the men he’d have been working with. He’s been walking the beat for 28 years so you can’t help thinking he’d have been sort of naturalised or affected in some way by his environment and the people he works with. So it’s fascinating to watch these men in 1968 re-enacting scenes, which was quite progressive for the time actually, as well as interviews with the cops themselves. Also he deliberately chooses to work in Rockaway out near the airport. He avoids the more kind of intense scene of Times Square and the corruption and violence that was going on, so I’ve been looking at Rockaway, New Jersey, where he would have been working.

This production marks the play’s 50^th anniversary. How do you feel it speaks to contemporary audiences?

Like all Arthur Miller’s plays and his most famous trilogy of All My Sons, The Crucible and Death Of A Salesman it has great humanity and that always speaks to audiences – the way he writes about the human condition and how people relate to each other. One of the driving forces behind this play is how the past impacts the future; the father loses everything in the 1929 crash and that affected the two sons very much, affects how they conduct themselves today, how they are with each other and how they live their lives because of the choices they made. In terms of the very personal aspects of the play as well as the political impact of the boom-bust financial system it’s still a very powerful piece. Miller said it was one of his favourite plays and one of his best and, for me, from reading his autobiography, Timebends, it seems very much one of his most personal plays because everything is in there – his life, his family, his friends. Also, when you’re writing about family and relationships that speaks to us eternally, doesn’t it?

How is it working with Jonathan Church, who is directing the play and who is the Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Bath’s Summer Season?

Our paths crossed at The Crucible in Sheffield in the late 80s. It was a great breeding ground for amazing talent; Stephen Daldry came out of there, as did Jonathan Church. That’s when I first came across him but we’ve never had the opportunity to work together until now. And it’s a fantastic experience. We’re doing this epic play and the atmosphere he creates is very conducive to creative work. I think anything Jonathan doesn’t know about theatre isn’t worth knowing. I’m really enjoying the collaboration and we’ve got a fantastic quartet of actors including David Suchet, Sara Stewart and Adrian Lukis. Hopefully we can deliver.

What do you most relish about stage work?

I enjoy the immediacy of it. I enjoy the fact that the creatives are, I suppose, much more in control because in the rehearsal room it’s just the director, the actors and the stage manager so the process is in our hands. And when we go out at night it’s just us, the audience and our crew. When a play flies it’s a very communal, connected experience. A live performance is very powerful. I love TV and film but those are very different experiences and I think theatre is more impactful.

What have been your favourite stage roles to date?

There’s so many but if I had to condense it down to seminal, life-changing roles one of them would be The Weir. It was the first time I’d come across [writer] Conor McPherson and he had a huge impact on my life because we did a few incarnations of it. We started doing a site-specific performance in a scene dock for 60 people and we ended up on the same Broadway stage where Bruce Springsteen is now doing his one-man show. It was quite a journey. And after The Price I’m doing Conor’s monologue St Nicholas. We’ve been developing and rehearsing that and doing secret performances, which we’re very excited about.

In terms of screen work, what did you most enjoy about your time as Mr Bates on Downton Abbey?

Again it’s my workmates – the actors I got to work with and spend time with, especially Joanne Froggatt as Mrs Bates. We had a great rapport and we had a very special working relationship, but everybody was great. Most of the time I was with my cast mates in the servant’s hall and you couldn’t have wished for better or funnier company, especially Phyllis Logan, who I’m delighted to say is going to be appearing in the Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio [in the play Switzerland] at the same time as I’m doing The Price. We’re going to be in the building at the same time, with Phyllis in the studio and me in the main house.

What are your fondest memories of playing Robert Timmins on Lark Rise to Candleford?

At the risk of being repetitive, again it was my cast mates – Claudia Blakley, Olivia Hallinan, John Dagleish, Karl Johnson, Linda Bassett. It was a very happy company. It reminded me of being in a theatre troupe working in and around Bath. That scenery was so conducive to creating a lovely atmosphere. It was a joy to do, as were Bill Gallagher’s terrific scripts. So yes, happy times!

You won a New York Critics Theater World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut for The Weir. How did working on Broadway compare to the UK?

It was double-edged sword because on the one hand we gained this great sort of impact, coming into New York in a blaze of glory because The Weir had been named one of the top 100 plays of the 20^th century by the National Theatre, Conor and I had Olivier awards… But we were in a huge theatre, a 2000-odd seater, and it was a very different beast to the intimate impact it had over here. Audiences were more observing something rather than being involved in it. We ran for 10 months on Broadway and it was still an amazing experience and I especially liked doing Sunday afternoon shows. I think that’s a great time to go to the theatre. I don’t know how box office staff or crews feel about it, but Sunday afternoon is a great time to do a play or see a play, then you’ve got Sunday and Monday nights off. I love New York and when you’re working there you’re plugged into the cultural life of the city. It was a great time.

Was acting your first career choice and what lead you into the business?

No, it wasn’t. I was really struggling towards the end of my school years because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just knew it wasn’t the options that were available to me, that my friends were taking up – like mechanics, engineering and stuff. I was just not technically-minded in any way whatsoever and it started to occur to me that something creative might be the way forward. Having seen a play for the first time around age 15, a Shakespeare play, and starting to get into film I had an instinct that was sort of what I should be looking at. Then I discovered that I had a cousin in Dublin, a theatre director and actress who had set up an acting studio there and the time came where I thought I’d take this mad leap into something I didn’t really understand or know anything about.

Your great uncle was Sir Matt Busby so did you ever consider pursuing a career in football?

Yes, I did. I loved football and I was brought up to support Manchester United, and I still do. Up to about the age of 14 I lived and breathed football and of course that’s what I’d have loved to have done but round about that age I had a pretty clear idea that I just wasn’t going to make the grade. I was alright at football but you need to be brilliant to rise through the ranks and I knew I wasn’t brilliant. That’s a good thing, I think; it’s good to realise you’re not good enough at something to make a living out of it. [Laughs] Also at that age music and girls come along and there are other distractions. But I’m blessed to have had Matt as a great uncle because he was an extraordinary figure, as was his sister – my granny, who is also a great hero.

You recently completed work on the film Mary Queen of Scots alongside Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. How was it working with such a fantastic cast?

It was an amazing experience. Those two women are extraordinary and there’s also an extraordinary woman at the helm, Josie Rourke – who recently left the Donmar Warehouse and this is her first film. For two weeks she created the atmosphere of a theatre company. It was a very egalitarian atmosphere; we rehearsed in that way and did our research in that way. It’s quite rare on a film so we were all kind of connected and it was incredible being on that set with those two amazing women carrying the film. There was a great atmosphere, great costumes, a terrific script by Beau Willimon, and hopefully we’ve done it justice.

And how was it returning to costume dramas after contemporary projects like Me Before You and Requiem?

As actors we just like to mix and match. I’m playing a New York cop at the moment, I’m about to play an Irish theatre critic as soon as this finishes. We love all that jumping around and dressing up. On Requiem there was an extraordinary bunch of people and Me Before You was a lovely rom-com which did very well. You just enjoy mixing it up as much as you can.

Have you visited Bath since Lark Rise to Candleford? What are you most looking forward to about returning?

It’s been a few years but I’ve been to the Theatre Royal Bath many times. It’s a beautiful city and its surrounding areas are gorgeous. I love the shopping and mooching around, the river, the parks, the architecture, the atmosphere, it’s a beautiful place.

And what are you most looking forward to about performing at the Theatre Royal for the first time?

I’ve seen a number of plays there so I know what to expect from the building. There’s such a great atmosphere in the theatre, a nice buzz about it, and it’s such a beautiful stage. Before I’ve only seen it from the auditorium so I’m looking forward to actually stepping onto that stage. I also hear great things about Phyllis’s play [Downton Abbey co-star Phyllis Logan is currently starring in Switzerland at the Ustinov Studio] so it’ll be nice to see it and hook up with her again.

Rehearsal photo of The Price by Nobby Clark

 

The Price is at Theatre Royal Bath from 9^th August –25^th August 2018