British actor stays busy with smart dramas
Black Sails star stretches himself in different roles
LONDON — Rupert Penry-Jones, the tall blond star of the British TV lawyer drama Silk, is, despite his surname, the very epitome of Englishness. He grew up in London and attended Bristol Old Vic theatre school — but was expelled for “disruptive” behaviour.
“I couldn’t stand all the tapdancing and singing that went on,” he says. “I just wanted to act, and in that respect I’m old school: I don’t go and live in the slum where my character lived for three months before filming in order to get a feel for him. I’m far too lazy.”
After being violently dispatched in an explosion on TV spy drama Spooks, Penry-Jones now plays a lawyer in Silk.
It’s an intelligent show, as was Spooks. The main frustration is that, with a run of just six episodes, it hooks viewers then leaves them hanging.
“If we want to push boundaries and make great TV, we need to emulate the (U.S) networks who placed their faith in certain shows, like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, regardless of low initial ratings, and took a risk by recommissioning them,” Penry-Jones says.
One of the downsides of being typecast is it makes you lazy
“In this country there’s a huge reluctance to make that commitment. There’s still an overreliance on overnight viewing figures that simply doesn’t reflect how people watch television in the age of the download.”
But he’s not exactly twiddling his thumbs: At the risk of typecasting, there’s always a market for posh, officer-class types.
“Not always,” Penry-Jones says. “What goes around comes around. Sometimes tall blond chaps fall out of favour because everyone wants Scots or Liverpudlians or redheads and then, eventually, we come back in vogue again.
“One of the downsides of being typecast is that it makes you lazy, because you’re being constantly asked to do the same role, and it all becomes terribly easy,” he says.
“The way you keep yourself alive and interested as an actor is to stretch yourself and test yourself. That’s why actors become actors: They don’t want to be the same person every day.”
He’s just back from Cape Town, shooting Black Sails, a U.S. series about pirates starring British actor Toby Stephens as Captain Flint. Also in the cast is Calgary actress Jessica Parker Kennedy.
“I’m not a pirate,” says Penry-Jones with hammy mournfulness. “I’m an English lord, but (Stephens) is far posher than me, so it’s perfectly reasonable to have a poshy as a pirate.”
His wife, meanwhile, Irish actress Dervla Kirwan — who found fame in Ballykissangel — is appearing in the hugely well-received West End play The Weir.
“It’s hard trying to keep both careers going, so we’ve adopted the philosophy that whoever gets the big job goes to work, and the other looks after the kids and keeps domestic life on an even keel,” he says.
“We’re very positive for one another and we’re luckily in the position where we don’t have to take bad work for the sake of having a job.”
“Bad work” being? Penry-Jones laughs.
“I’m not going to say, because the day might yet come when that’s just the sort of work I’ll be grateful for!”
RUPERT PENRY-JONES