29 July 1999
Source: The Herald
The Gang's all Here
John Millar
Sean Bean and Alex Kingston play a modern-day Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in a new British crime movie. JOHN MILLAR spoke to them on the set
It's in the best traditions of movie-making that the stars have to suffer, just a little bit, for their art.
And so it has been for Sean Bean and Alex
Kingston - actors best known for their television success - as
they've been filming Essex Boys, the latest production in a tradition
of gritty British gangster movies such as Get Carter and The Long
Good Friday.
Inspired by a newspaper report about an apparent drugs deal that
went wrong, when the bodies of three men were found in a car in
the Essex countryside, the movie, which has been described as
"GoodFellas set in Canvey Island", is an uncompromising
story of rivalry, greed and betrayal.
One of the most bloody sequences in the film is a shoot-out between
rival gangs, which was filmed late at night in Epping Forest on
Saint Patrick's Day. This is a no-punches-pulled drama, in which
Bean plays a crook who has just been released from prison. He
took the rap and didn't inform on the rest of the gang, who have
got rich while he was behind bars. Now he wants his share of the
ill-gotten profits.
And Kingston is cast as Bean's forceful, ambitious wife, who eggs
him on. She's the real brains in this relationship.
Both Bean, the star of the Sharpe TV series based on the Napoleonic
War novels of Bernard Cornwell, and Kingston, who achieved acclaim
in the recent small screen adaptation of Moll Flanders, have undergone
significant cosmetic changes for their roles.
He's had to forget his passion for Sheffield United and pretend
to be a devout Essex boy who naturally follows West Ham. That's
meant having his famous tattoo which says "Blades" -
Sheffield United's nickname - covered by a fake West Ham one.
"I might get a bit of stick for that," says Bean with
the sort of half-hearted grin which suggests that other Blades
fans will be inclined to poke fun at him when they discover his
guilty secret.
Kingston's enforced alteration to her appearance is much more
obvious. Her crowning glory, a cascade of pre-Raphaelite Titian-coloured
curls, has been straightened, to make the actress appear even
more striking.
The popular image of an Essex girl, of course, is blonde. But
the actress was unable to go through that transformation because,
as soon as filming was completed on Essex Boys, she was due back
on the set of ER, the American television hospital drama in which
she's a regular. Obviously her American employers want their star
to return to the screen looking as the show's millions of viewers
remembered her from the previous series.
She has enjoyed the temporary loss of those trademark curls, however.
"It allows me to play somebody completely different because
it such a totally distinctive look. The character I play is hard,
she's not somebody who is soft and romantic. She is as strong
as the men," she says.
"When Sean and I were rehearsing some of the earlier scenes
there was a likeness to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth because she has
the ambition and wants her husband to get what's due to him.
"But she has to use her power in a different way because
the men don't like it to appear that they take, or even listen
to, their wives' advice because that would, in a way, emasculate
them."
We were talking during a break in filming at a mansion 40 minutes
or so from Stansted Airport. The film unit had rented the impressive
building to stage a gangland bash, as the coming-out of Bean's
character was celebrated in style.
The two leads are supported in Essex Boys by a strong cast that
includes Tom Wilkinson, fresh from his success in the Oscar-winning
Shakespeare In Love, and Charlie Creed Miles, who grabbed the
spotlight in Gary Oldman's film festival hit, Nil By Mouth.
Both Bean and Kingston stress that they were drawn to the movie
by a powerful script.
"It has been important for me to do something like this during
my break from ER," says Kingston.
"If you stay within the context of one show you are more
easily typecast. When this script was sent to me I thought it
was so well written that I just wanted to be involved.
"It's refreshing to play a completely different part and
to stay in touch with what's happening over here in Britain. I
certainly don't want people to think that I've gone for good or
that I have turned my back on this country and my career over
here."
There's the added bonus that filming in Britain allows her to
stock up on all the goodies that are just that bit harder to come
by in Los Angeles. Like the favourite brand of tea which she now
has in her fridge at her Californian home.
Bean, who is still based on these shores, was also attracted by
the challenges that Essex Boys presented. The son of Sheffield
has had to adopt a convincing Essex accent, done with the aid
of a voice coach and the actor paying extra special attention
to the sound of locals.
"Fortunately, I've had quite a lot of time to get it together.
I knew I was involved in this production since last November.
So I have had a few months to work on the accent. It's great when
you get a bit of time to prepare because it doesn't happen very
often," he says.
The actor also says he was keen to tackle a character who was
more complex than just another gangland psychotic.
"It's been a fascinating, exciting job to work on because
of the conflicting emotions that the character goes through. He
is insecure and vulnerable, but he has a front that he uses to
try and hide that," he says.
"I don't expect, though, the audiences will feel too sorry
for him. He's not an angel, he's a bit of a terror and a menace,
a violent character."
Recently Bean has been seen as a cowardly character alongside
Robert De Niro in the John Frankenheimer thriller, Ronin. And,
of course, he was the treacherous agent who betrayed James Bond
in the box office hit, GoldenEye. Naturally, after the global
success of GoldenEye he got lots of offers to play very similar
villains.
"It was a big hit and so people see you in that role,"
he says with a note of resignation. "But I've tried to mix
the roles that I do. Playing Vronsky in Anna Karenina, for instance,
was completely different.
"It's easy to play something that you know that you are good
at and play it over and over again. It's an easy option but not
an exciting one. It's better to go out on a limb, take a challenge,
even if you flop."
The huge fan-base which made Sharpe such a ratings success will
be encouraged to hear that Bean might return as that laconic hero.
The series is over. It ended, as he agrees, on a natural high,
with a lavish edition set during the battle of Waterloo. But there
is serious talk of a big screen Sharpe, and Bean admits that he'd
be keen to line up for that.
"The idea is to do a film of Sharpe's Tiger and that might
be interesting. It would be a massive scale drama. We'll see what
happens," he says, refusing to get too carried away by the
possibilities.
As lunch approaches, I wonder if Bean - who achieved one ambition
when he made the football film, When Saturday Comes - has any
other ambitions that he maybe close to fulfilling.
"I'm thinking about doing some stage work," he reveals.
"I haven't done that for a long time. It is something that
interests me and I would like to try it again. It sharpens up
your skills."