Books by Actors – David Thewlis on Acting and Writing
From actor to novelist
Actor David Thewlis‘ films include Naked (1993), the Harry Potter series, and many more. His first novel, The Late Hector Kipling, has just been published, and screenwriter William Monahan interviewed Thewlis for a BlackBook magazine article [Fiction (With a Twist of Lennon)].
William Monahan: I find that when you’re writing a character, you are that character. It’s probably no joke that Shakespeare was an actor. Dickens, famously, was a brilliant performer of his invented people, not only when he was reading in public but also when he was creating them on the page. Do you see any connection yourself between the ability to act and the ability to write?
David Thewlis: I think there is a very strong connection. One of the most pointless questions I seem to get asked over and over is, “Do you think you may now give up acting?” as though I am condemned to choose one or the other.
Character development on screen and page
As an actor you spend your life creating characters, understanding motives, paying great attention to the details, the mannerisms, the speech inflections.
It does not seem much of a jump then to shift this ability to the page. I work with dialogue all the time and endlessly persevere to make speech sound natural.
Actors read a lot—scripts, source novels, research; they live with words, so it seems a natural progression to try and write a few yourself, since over the years you have learned what works.
Also, in my own case, I was actually writing a long time before I even thought of acting. It has just taken me rather a long time to find my own style and also to build up the confidence to put something out there.
The Late Hector Kipling
William Monahan calls The Late Hector Kipling “a hyper-literate, shockingly funny, and just plain shocking look at vanity, revenge, sex, suicide, death, madness, and murder in the London art world.”
David Thewlis describes some of the themes that can relate to many artists, “There are parallels to the film world here, of course. The money is similar at that level of success, the bitterness, the rivalry, the celebrity, and, of course, the twisted fans.
“The money and the fame can drive wedges into relationships, with the ones who get left behind wondering if their rival is merely lucky or if it is in some way a reflection of their own lack of talent. Many friendships cannot bear the weight of this ambiguity, and they begin to suffer a loss of spontaneity and generosity of spirit.
“I also found the art world full of amorality. The players are fantastically eccentric. They seem to crawl around in some shady hinterland between home decorating and pornography, and one always imagines that they must smell a bit funny.”
Writing in angst
Another interview article (UK Vogue, Sept 2007), described his writing process. Thewlis said, “I rented a flat in Soho and cut the plug off the television.” By day, he walked the streets and sat in cafes, watching and plotting. By night, he wrote. Within nine months, he had written his first draft. His publishers loved it, but said it needed some work. By then, Thewlis was in love with Friel and his life in general.
“I used to write out of angst,” he explains. “When I met Anna, I lost that urge to vent spleen.” [His partner, actor Anna Friel, stars in the new TV series "Pushing Daisies."]
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Also see a related post on “angst”: Keeping the turmoil in your art – not your spirit, and The Inner Actor post: Actors Privacy – The Dark Side of Fame.
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