INTERVIEWS with Ian McShane

L.A. TIMES, Feb. 16, 1985
IAN McSHANE GIVES 'EVIDENCE'
by Janice Arkatov

"When people see a performance and say, 'Oh, I know that character—it's me,' I think that the author, or the actor, has failed," Ian McShane remarked. "Art should illuminate, not just reflect. And it should make you think."

These days, the material that has McShane thinking is John Os-borne's "Inadmissible Evidence," opening tonight at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave.

"It's about a man, a lawyer in London, who's going over the edge. The play starts out in a dream sequence, a mock trial, with Maitland (his character) on trial for his life—explaining why he's mediocre, why he really doesn't feel he's worth anything, why he drives everybody away from him," McShane said.

"It's a very written-from-the-gut play," the British actor continued, alternating between wake-up coffee and Camels in the Sunset Strip penthouse he shares with his wife, Gwen. "The character is confused—and he's flailing."

In his sex life, too. "He has the idea that love between a man and a woman demands obligations, summonses, time-keeping. So that anonymous love—in this case, homosexuality—sort of excites him.

"On the other hand, he does want the comfort of a family and a wife, so it's the anomaly of those two things that he can't put together."

For McShane, the material's appeal includes its theatrical architecture: "This play is an attempt to get beyond the 'slice of life' style to a more classical form, with its grand soliloquies and going in and out of reality. It's like 'Hamlet'-if he didn't have those long speeches, the play would be nothing; you wouldn't understand.

"It's the same way with this character. If he just comes off as a whining bore, then it's pointless."

McShane's last play was a British production of Odets' "The Big Knife" (in which he played "another middle-aged man who's flailing"). Recent screen roles have been more varied: a homosexual doorman in the film "Too Scared to Scream," a "heavy cocaine dealer" in "Torchlight," and an "erudite, quintessential New York banking Waspy Jew" in "Evergreen" (airing this month on NBC).

At the moment, however, he's concentrating on the stage.

"Joe Stern (the play's producer, with whom McShane also worked two years ago in "Betrayal") was very persuasive about my doing this show," he said. "It is a great exercise, a big stretch. But this is not a showcase just for me—that's not why we're doing it. It is, simply, a play to be done. An extraordinary piece of theater."
 

LOS ANGELES HERALD EXAMINER, Mon., Feb. 4, 1985
McSHANE MAKES THE BEST OF AMERICA
by Susan King

British expatriate finds a home on our stages and screens

It's a rainy Monday morning, and Ian McShane isn't quite awake. He rummages through the kitchen and trots into the bedroom to ask his wife, actress Gwen Humble, where his cigarettes are. The Camels in question, it turns out, are resting right next to a copy of John Osborne's play "Inadmissible Evidence" on the table in the dining room where his search began.

"This always happens," McShane explains, lighting up with some satisfaction. His wife hides them because she wants him to give up the habit. Then, too, he's been rehearsing his role as Bill Maitland in "Evidence" for Joseph Stern's Matrix Theater in West Hollywood until 1 a.m. Perhaps that explains why the very gregarious British-born actor is still a bit groggy.

"Evidence" (currently in previews and scheduled to open Feb. 16) marks the second time that McShane has performed at the Matrix. He previously appeared in the critically acclaimed 1982 production of the Harold Pinter play "Betrayal." "We've been talking about doing another play," he says. "and this came up, and everything came together. It's very exciting."

"Evidence," Osborne's biting look at a middle-age barrister whose life has reached a saturation point, originally premiered in London 20 years ago and made a star out of Nicol Williamson. It later ran on Broadway for 166 performances in the 1966 season, and Williamson also repeated his performance for the 1968 film version. Kristoffer Tabori is directing the West Coast premiere of the play.

McShane recalls he saw Williamson do the play in London: "I remember him being wonderful," he says, "but I don't remember much about it."

Stern, McShane says, has always wanted to do this play. "It's extraordinary. It's a very heavy piece. My character never stops talking. It's a great part."

He calls the play "surreal, because it goes in and out of imagination and life. This is very much an attempt (on-0sborne's part) te-write a modern piece of high drama. It's not real drama."

Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, McShane appeared in numerous productions on the London stage (including Joe Orton's "Loot" and "The Glass Menagerie") and starred on Broadway in "The Promise." He say he prefers doing Equity-waiver theater — for no pay - in Los Angeles to working for a salary in such larger houses as the Ahmanson or the Mark Taper Forum.

"The thing is," he explains while making himself coffee, "it's very difficult to do straight theater without compromising when you go into it. The Ahmanson and the Taper have subscriptions and they know their own boundaries. They put on a Neil Simon play because they'll know they'll make money; they're not adventurous, there's no spirit to that."

Working at the Matrix, he says, is different. "Joe likes to make money, too; he owns the theater, but he's more in charge of his own destiny and the overall thing in terms of putting the people together."

And as for the money situation. McShane says, "Of course you don't get paid, you can't. The one thing that you want it to be is right. Therefore, the people who have got to be paid are the technical people. Most of the best work you do is in the lower end of the pay scale."

McShane also says that he doesn't do theater as a showcase, which he finds many actors are now doing in Equity-waiver. "The thing is to do the whole piece," he points out. "We're not doing a play for me to play Maitland, it's the play itself. If the play's no good, there's no point in doing it."

Besides appearing in "Inadmissible Evidence," McShane can also be seen as Sidney, a slimy drug dealer in the film "Torchlight," which opened last Friday. "That was a very enjoyable job to do," he says. "It's a good character."

McShane also will be seen on the small screen later this month in the NBC miniseries "Evergreen," based on Belva Plain's best-selling novel -- co-starring Lesley Ann Warren and Armand Assante. McShane plays the role of Paul, whom he describes as a "sort of third fourth-generation rich New York Jewish WASP." Warren plays an immigrant, married to Assante, who works as a maid for Paul's family. "She's in love with my character, off and on for all of her life. I mean you should actually start crying when the credits go up and not stop until they go down," he chuckles.

McShane also has a part in the upcoming NBC miniseries "A.D." and just finished a two-hour TV pilot called "Breaker" with Carl Weathers. As soon as he concludes his engagement in "Evidence" in March, he's heading back to England for six months to do a series for the BBC.

McShane says he's constantly traveling back and forth from Hollywood to Europe, but he decided in 1975 to live here permanently. "I just decided to come live here and I work here a lot of the time. I don't like it here when I'm not working. It's not the best place to be. It's a strange city."

Though McShane loves doing theater in Los Angeles, he finds he must make compromises by doing TV. "It's the biggest paper shredder in the world, American TV. It shreds up a lot of talent. That's the sad thing about it. On the other hand, it's very productive. It creates a lot of work so theater can be done."
 

DAILY TROJAN, Mon., March 4, 1985
McSHANE'S DRAMATIC ROLES CONTRAST HIS LIFE
by Rosemarie Aguilar

This British film and stage actor's constant search
for variety is 'evidenced' in his challenging career

One wouldn't think that Benjamin Disraeli, a brilliant statesman and prime minister in Victorian England, would have anything in common with Vincent Hardwicke, a murderous doorman, but they do. Both were roles played by actor Ian McShane, one of those truly marvelous actors who should be known for his quality performances, but is better known by the public for his more exotic characterizations.

For a good part of his early career, McShane was known in the United States as the basic leading man because of the roles his swarthy good looks and British suavity secured him in feature films. Lately, he has become more familiar to audiences because of his acclaimed perfomances in "Disraeli," a BBC production seen here on PBS, and as Nikos, a Greek tycoon, on TV's "Bare Essence." But, as anyone with more than a passing interest in "British imports" can tell you, Ian McShane is a rather unique entity.

The English-born McShane, who resides in the U.S., is an incredibly versatile performer. Within the past month he has had two films released, Torchlight and Too Scared to Scream. Currently, McShane is indulging in the form of acting which gives him the most satisfaction: stage performing.

In 1982, McShane won the Los Angeles Critics' Award for a lead performance for his work in Harold Pinter's Betrayal. That show was produced by Actors for Themselves at the Matrix Theater on Melrose Avenue, and McShane is back there again to do John Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence. Under the direction of Kristoffer Siegel-Tabori, McShane is playing Bill Maitland, an Osbornian Everyman, who is struggling with himself about the way he has lived his life.

The play, McShane admitted, is quite difficult due to the "sheer emotional content" of Osborne's writing. The character of Bill is very demanding on an actor as there is a lot of difficult, subtle dialog for McShane to perform. McShane said that he decided to return to L.A. theater now simply because the time and the play are right for him. For over two years, he and producer Joseph Stern had been trying to work together again, as they did on Betrayal.

"We've talked about various plays, had a few readings and this is the one that seemed the right one to do," McShane said. "It's a tough bird to do, so it was not a matter of choosing carefully, it was question of doing a play because it's a worthy, serious drama. It's not a showcase for anybody, a lot of Equity work is done to showcase, but that's not what it's about."

Despite what he may say, Inadmissible Evidence is McShane's show. He is surrounded by a wonderful cast and incredible production designs, but nonetheless, Osborne wrote Bill Maitland as a representative of modern man, and he is the center of the play.

In his recent film releases, this was not the case, however. In the badly received Too Scared to Scream, McShane played Vincent Hardwicke. Though Hardwicke is the killer in that slasher film, as in all films of that genre, the blood and gore are the real stars. In Torchlight, McShane played a sleazy cocaine pusher named Sidney. Again, this role was not exactly Oscar-winning material, but McShane has no regrets about playing the parts.

"I enjoyed playing them for what they represent within each script and you're servicing the piece as a whole usually. Sidney the drug pusher in Torchlight, he was fun to play... you don't know who he likes. He might like dogs, you know, Alsatians with whips. Vincent's mother-fixated, obsessive... he was fun as well, I liked him. They all retain a certain little piece of your heart.

"Then you've got Maitland. Maitland's wonderful, he's one of those extraordinary characters that dares. It's an attempt to do a modern day classic drama in a sense. He's not a Hamlet, but he's working out his problems in the same way. He's working them out on everybody else, trying to make them see, trying to see through others what his own problem is."

Unlike the tortured character he plays in Inadmissible Evidence, McShane doesn't let much bother him. Torchlight and Too Scared to Scream were badly received by critics, although McShane's performances did garner some plaudits. Still, the judgement of the press is of little importance to him, and he actually agrees with their criticism.

"I don't think they're great films, I wouldn't bother to see them myself; I've not seen them."

Actually, McShane confessed he did see Torchlight in Atlanta but only because its premiere was a benefit for a drug recovery program.

"It was a good cause, but otherwise I wouldn't bother to see films I'm in. I don't get impressed by seeing myself up on the screen."

Now modesty is all well and good, and rarely found in the acting profession, but why then would an actor make bad films? McShane said that in making the films, you never can be sure of the final product. The film is so dependent upon a director's vision of it, that despite a good script and a good performance, things can still go wrong.

Such was the case with Torchlight. He said that the script to that movie was very good, but that the story was never brought out. As for his involvement with the project McShane said, "It was a great part to play; you have a good time and you leave. It's like a hired gun on jobs like that, you know, you go into town, you clean up and you leave."

McShane may seem to take his profession lightly, but he actually doesn't. You only have to see him work to know that. Given his choice, there is nothing else he'd rather be doing, although he dislikes the things that go along with the profession, like publicity and agents.

"Acting intrigues me more than anything else and I love doing it. It's my job and it's enormously satisfying and enormously challenging. The other side of it, I don't like it, the publicity side, that's the bullshit side. Some actors have based their whole career on that, they're much better at talking a good game than doing it. I'd much rather be judged on what you do than what you talk about. I've never looked for it (publicity) in my life. It's not one of my favorite things.

"I believe in agents for a purpose, they've got their job to do. In a sense, you pay for their new office or whatever. Leaving your life to an agent is like changing deck chairs on the Titanic."

The career planning method that McShane prefers is one of relative unplanning, and it has allowed him the freedom to work in Europe, as well as in the U.S. His latest film was done across the Atlantic. It is an Agatha Christie picture which features Faye Dunaway and Donald Sutherland and will have a royal premiere this month. McShane said British productions are no better than American productions, despite the quality shows brought across the ocean and shown on public television. We are only seeing the best of the BBC, and get to miss the worst shows on British television.

One of Britain's best exports was "Disraeli," which was shown on "Masterpiece Theatre" a few seasons ago McShane was brilliant as the Victorian prime minister, but even the success of that series failed to make McShane's name a household word. But, characteristically, it doesn't seem to worry McShane that he is not a "star."

"Being a star carries a lot of ridiculous baggage with it in whatever terms you put it, so I'll stick to actor. With television such a monster, people tend to believe acting is what television is, which is a bit sad if they think that. They think the road to glory is a feature film and a television series and that's the end of it.

"Actually, an actor is at the lowest end of the totem pole in terms of what you're doing, but it's you that's out there. You get the glory and you get the shit, and you've got to take it for that. It's also a job, you're serving a playwright like Osborne. It's a very serious, wonderful way to earn a living, and that's what I like about it. (Still), coming to do this play's a big undertaking, but it's not finding the cure for cancer. That's what it comes down to."