MM (und andere) erinnern sich an ihre wundervolle Zusammenarbeit mit Sir Michael Gambon:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/oct/03/michael-gambon-daniel-craig-penelope-wilton-tom-hollander-matthew-macfaydenDas Bild aus dem NT Garderobentrakt (Wasserschlacht) ist neu und bislang unveröffentlicht. Weil der Link vielleicht irgendwann nicht mehr funktioniert, hier wenigstens der Text kopiert:
Zitat:
‘There were water balloon fights before each show’
Matthew Macfadyen, actor
My first encounter with Gambon was seeing him in an Alan Ayckbourn play, Man of the Moment – it was in the West End and my parents took the 15-year-old me as a treat. I was entranced with it, and especially him. He was so gloriously detailed and funny. Properly, deftly hilarious. There was an actual swimming pool on stage into which Michael fell at the end. Bliss.
Years later, in only my second or third television job, we played father and son in Stephen Poliakoff’s Perfect Strangers. It was a wonderful cast – Lindsay Duncan, Timothy Spall et al, but I couldn’t quite believe I was acting with Michael. And he was just so warm and lovely: wicked, elegant, twinkling, soulful, rackety. We had a few weeks of night shoots at Claridge’s early on and we’d stand outside on Brook Street at 3am, smoking, me utterly enthralled and weak with laughter – and he could render you helpless with laughter – him freewheeling his “greatest hits” anecdotes, all about his spear-carrying days at the new National Theatre under Olivier.
He was so kind, too. I had to cry in a take at one point, as I watched his character (as my dad) drunkenly making a fool of himself at a family reunion. Michael wasn’t on camera but he saw that I was nervous and came over very discreetly and quietly to talk to me and encourage me. I was overwhelmingly moved by that. So of course my tears just flowed in the take.
In 2005 we played Hal and Falstaff at the National, in Nick Hytner’s production of Henry IV one and two – another father/son relationship of sorts. Again such fun, but a little wobbly with the lines, a little more rackety. I could sense a nervousness in him. It’s exhilarating playing those great big canonical roles, but frightening too. There’d been a good deal of silliness among the cast throughout the run – water balloon fights before each show in the internal courtyard space of the National. But I won’t forget those flashes of fear in his eyes, standing with him in the wings of the Olivier stage, waiting to go on.
There’s a magnificent painting of Mike by Stuart Pearson Wright. He’s sitting down, half Falstaff, half him, in his dressing room at the National. He sat for it during the run of those shows, and I love it because I see him in it. Or maybe just the bits I want to see, the bits I recognise. Swirling depths, something uneasy, something tender, great heart and rage and wit. An actor to the tips of those long elegant fingers.
I adored him. They say you ought not to meet your heroes but I did, and I’m so glad and so grateful.