An interview with Tim McInnerny

9 September 2016

Tell us a little bit about your character, Karl?

Well Karl is Paul's best friend. Robbie’s character and mine are supposed to have been a double act and best friends for 40 years and I suppose, without claiming we're as funny in real life, the equivalent would be someone like Morecambe and Wise, they are a much beloved double act who haven't worked together recently. Paul's been doing chat shows and afternoon television and Karl has been concentrating on serious work in the theatre - but they're both hugely well-known. At the start of the show I'm given an award that Paul presents to Karl. It's the kind of relationship where they are so close that they can be rude and difficult with each other because they have a bond so tight that it can never be dissolved. Having said that they do have problems, Karl has always had thing for Paul’s wife Marie. He has always loved her from afar and doesn't think that she has necessarily been well treated over the years. They also lived very close to each other. Karl also gets on very well with their daughter Dee (played by Andrea Riseborough) and she is as likely to talk to me as she is anybody else, I think. Karl doesn't live with anyone but I think Karl is perfectly happy with that, because he holds a torch for Marie.  

 

What was it that attracted you to the role and to the project?

There are several things. I thought the writing was fantastic, Jack Thorne is an extraordinary writer. It has many psychological and emotional levels, which is what you always want to play. When I go into work in the morning I want to be excited about going to work and a little bit scared and to think “am I going to be able to do this?!” Because if you don’t have that feeling I don't really see the point in doing it. I hate coasting through jobs, it’s very boring to me. The other thing was that I did know Robbie and we had worked together in the past but I hadn't seen him for at least 20 years. And I think Marc Munden is the best director on television. I've worked with him twice, I did Utopia and the Devil's Whore with him too and they were just brilliant. I really like him and he likes actors so that all helps! And Julie as well as apart from being brilliant in it, I think she's one of the nicest people I've ever met!

 

What was it like working again with Robbie and playing a role where you both had to be so bonded?

One of the great luxuries that we had, which is very rare on television nowadays, is that we had 2 weeks rehearsal. That's almost unheard of these days and that made a huge difference. The idea of knowing somebody most of your life and being relaxed in their company - you can't fake that, you have to work at it and have time in advance, you can't do it cold. And Robbie is brilliant because he is very funny. Robbie is very funny, as we know, and as an actor he has a tremendous dark edge to him as well, and we could take risks with each other and experiment and play off each other. We could play it like we were doing a play and we could take chances. It was a very organic process and it was fantastic to do.

 

What was it like working with Andrea and Julie?

Julie is wonderful. I've always loved Julie's acting. I'd never met her before but we bonded immediately, at least I like to think so. She is so open and easy to work with that it's very easy to be equally open and vulnerable in your work with her. She is very funny but she’s also extraordinarily raw and that makes you act in a particular way as well and I found it hugely enjoyable. That was one of the nice things about working with Robbie and Julie and Andrea - they’re all very, very different, but all hugely talented and I think we all brought things out of each other.

 

The show covers a quite a controversial topic, did you have any misgivings about being a part of it?

I do know people who have been through these kind of things and we talked about that a lot in rehearsals. You don't want to cheapen the idea of it or just sensationalise it. Paul Gambacinni is a friend of mine so I know exactly what he went through for a year and a half, so all those conversations were part of the process. You don't want to make any judgments in advance, which helps when you have a director as subtle as Marc. You could actually figure out how you felt about it all as a character, and yourself, as it went on.

 

Karl is an interesting character, as he's not technically part of the family but he's known them for so long - what do you think is unique about his version of events?

Well, if the accusations are true, then he is as complicit as Paul is, if not more so for lying about it - that would be one way of looking at it. I think everything seems so perfect for them on the surface, but Paul is unhappy when we start the series and obviously there are tremendous problems with his daughter, and there always has been. Karl is kind of on the outside of that but as a long-time friend, he's so close to them and loves all of them.

 

Doubt, memory and faith are key themes that Jack explores in the drama, how do these themes manifest themselves in Karl's character and story lines?

They are kind of all woven together. It's one of the things about playing characters that have known each other for so long, your memory of events (good and bad), exploring how reliable memory can be in the first place? Memories that are forced upon you - is that even the real thing that happened? Doubt is a terrible thing to have about your best friends and the people you love. Even if proven false, the fact that you have doubted somebody is very hard to forget. Faith - in terms of religious faith - affects Julie's character Marie, but Karl doesn't have that. I think he invests a lot of faith in people as friends. He's a complex mixture of both a very loyal friend but someone who can cut and run to protect himself if things don't pan out the way he hopes. Because of the accusations against Paul, memory may not be the comforting thing that it once was. Everything has changed really.

 

Jack has spoken about the distorting lens of celebrity and how people react to different celebrities and about how it can afford a sense of entitlement that can lead to tragic consequences. In your career in the industry have you ever experienced this first hand?

I haven't experienced it directly. Even though you’re not necessarily conscious of it, you do feel a kind of invulnerability, I suppose, and suddenly if something were to happen not only are you vulnerable but your more vulnerable because everything happens so much more in the public eye. And, of course, the whole thing from the point of view of National Treasure is how much do we make judgements according to what we read in the press and see in the TV and how we come down to one side or the other with no  knowledge of the details of the trial. You're being judged by the media and your own preconceptions about what happens in your own life. One of the things about National Treasure is that it makes you (as a viewer) stop making those superficial judgements. This was a really special job and as soon as I finished filming I missed it because it not only because of the quality of the writing, the directing, the acting and the camera crew but I think it made me a better actor and that's what you want from a job, you just want to get better and jobs like National Treasure don’t come along all that often I wish they did but then I guess they wouldn't be special!