E-mail a friendTom Wilkinson
airdate December 7, 2007
Tom Wilkinson is one of the busiest actors in both his native Britain and the U.S. Next up in the buzz-worthy new film, Michael Clayton, his diverse credits include Sense and Sensibility, In the Bedroom, for which he received an Oscar nod, and a starring role in The Full Monty—which brought him international recognition. Wilkinson segued to features from the stage. After attending London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he performed with several theater companies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Tom Wilkinson
Tavis: Tom Wilkinson is an Oscar-nominated actor whose acclaimed career includes films like "In The Bedroom," "The Full Monty" and "Shakespeare in Love." Next year, you can catch him opposite Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney in the seven-part HBO mini-series on the life of John Adams.
His current project is the film, "Michael Clayton," which also stars some guy named George Clooney. Here now a scene from "Michael Clayton."
[Film Clip]
Tavis: So playing opposite George Clooney in a major motion picture, Tom Wilkinson, is like what?
Tom Wilkinson: Well, it doesn't get a lot better than that. You always have to pinch yourself when you find yourself in a situation like that. Well, I've been doing a lot of pinching over the last few years because there's still a bit of you that still is waiting for a bus in the rain in the north of England. Suddenly you find yourself calling him George, not even Mr. Clooney, so that's nice.
Tavis: They should call you Mr. Wilkinson. You played that role quite well.
Wilkinson: Thank you.
Tavis: Not that my opinion matters, but I thought you did a fine job. I enjoyed it immensely. What got me was, in preparing for our conversation, I read that you don't do a whole lot of research. You don't do a whole lot of background work on your roles, on your characters. Did I read something false or is that true? Because if it is true, you do a pretty good job for a guy that doesn't do a lot of research.
Wilkinson: I avoid it if I can. I mean, if you were playing something like a surgeon and they had to show you doing an operation, of course, you'd have to know how to do it (laughter). You can imagine if you didn't do it. It doesn't bear thinking about (laughter). But, I mean, if it's not necessary, the script should be enough for you. Sometimes you have to sort of do stuff, but you can over-prepare, I think.
Tavis: Every actor has his or her own methodology for how they get into a character. So for one who does not do a lot of research, doesn't do a lot of background work on the project, how then, for you, do you bring that life to the character in a way that you're happy with?
Wilkinson: What you do is you try to focus. In a well-written role, there's usually one single central moment from which the life of the character springs. If you can isolate it and just think, "That's it. That's what makes him change from this sort of person to this sort of person." Then you can build from that and that will usually work.
Tavis: For those who have not seen the movie, share more about your character. I ask that in part because there's a little buzz around this town about this time on the eve of Oscar nominations and your name is popping up maybe for a supporting actor. First of all, you been hearing any of that stuff?
Wilkinson: Well, it's a rumor. I'm not totally -
Tavis: - (Laughter) You heard that rumor?
Wilkinson: Yeah.
Tavis: Okay. So tell me about the character that you play, for those who haven't seen the project.
Wilkinson: He's a big business lawyer who's defending the indefensible. It's a big conglomerate agricultural thing. In fact, he discovers that they're poisoning people. He works for a big law firm and he's defending this company against what I think is called a class action.
Tavis: A class action suit.
Wilkinson: People are dying, basically. The central moment that you don't see on screen, which is his encounter with this sort of angelic innocent young woman whose family is dying, he suddenly realizes that - if you live a life that can be described in terms of shades of gray, you can sort of cope with it. But the instant it turns into black and white and you realize you're on the dark side, that provokes a sort of crisis in him. That's what you see, a man who is undergoing this sort of tremendous crisis.
Tavis: Let me probe that because, to your point, you're playing this character who is a partner in a major firm, one of the most brilliant lawyers in the firm are you, you're the lead attorney on this case defending, as you said, the indefensible, a major agribusiness firm that's poisoning people and killing people.
You said also that there's a scene that you really don't see in the film, but one has to assume it's a seminal film because this young lady whose family is dying touches you in such a way that it makes you rethink and, quite frankly, turn your own opinion about this case that you're the lead attorney on. Now I say all that because -
Wilkinson: - you do that better than I do.
Tavis: No, no, no, not at all. I'm merely talking to myself to make sure I get this question right. I said all that to ask this, which is how do you imagine that that seminal scene - I'm calling it a seminal scene - that we don't see on camera actually takes place?
What is it that you envision as an actor? Because you have to believe that this woman got to you and into your heart for you to turn on screen as the character that you play. What do you imagine as an actor happens to you when you meet this woman?
Wilkinson: I don't know. I don't have to. I know it's happened.
Tavis: But you do have to, because you got to believe that she got to you, don't you?
Wilkinson: Yeah. It's however you - you don't have to do sort of the chapter and verse. You don't have to say, "I'm suddenly looking at this thing and I realize that we're poisoning these people and then suddenly I look across the room and I see this woman giving a deposition and suddenly it occurs to me that I am doing the wrong thing, doing the evil thing" and so on and so forth.
In fact, you do see it. You do see it. It is that thing that's kind of captured on videotape. But I don't have to know the physical actuality of it. I don't have to figure that out. What I have to have is that sense of, you know, passionate importance that is so great that he's going to change his life. It's the Damascus Road incident for him.
Tavis: You ever played a character that did that for you in real life? Because you do this in the film, to your point. You have this Damascus Road experience. Ever played a character that in real life you were so impacted by the role or by the script or about the movie or about the book that it changed you?
Wilkinson: No, I don't think so. No. Certainly my work is not something I take home with me. No. It's a complicated question and I think the answer is no.
Tavis: The flip side of that or the companion question to that might be, just out of curiosity, how then you choose the kinds of roles that you want to do.
Wilkinson: You do it on the basis of the script. You've heard this a thousand times and it's true. You read a lot of scripts and a lot of them, most of them, are awful or most of them are not good. Occasionally, you see something that sparks something off. You know, you read a script and, if you want to go and make yourself a cup of coffee after ten minutes, you're probably not going to do it.
But if you read it to the end and think by the time - I said it the other day, I never really acknowledged it - by the time I have finished a script for the first time that I subsequently end up doing, I've already made the major decisions about how to play that character.
Tavis: One read?
Wilkinson: One read. Yeah, I don't think, "Oh, nice script, nice character, now what do I think?" Even then, you probably wouldn't end up doing it. Usually, you're reading it and you go, "Yes, indeed. This is good."
Tavis: For you - I don't want to phrase this - is that just intuitive or does that come out of the real acting training that you've had over the years?
Wilkinson: No, it's intuitive. It's a sense of, you know - something triggers your imagination to the point that, as you read it, you think, "Oh, that's what I'm going to do. I can see that's the important bit of this scene. I know how to do this. I'm going to do this. I can shine."
Tavis: How did you know that this acting thing was for you, that this was your gift?
Wilkinson: That's a big question and I don't know. I now know that I would have been useless doing anything else. I now know, having done it for thirty-five years, that it's what I should be doing. You take a little bit of a risk when you start off at, you know, age twenty-two or whatever it was when I started.
You take a little bit of a risk that, you know, all the things that are going to get put in your way, particularly in the beginning of a career, all the rejection, all the other things. You've got to be temperamentally suited to the job. You've got to have a lot of luck and you've got to have the right temperament because you get an awful lot of rejection, which is kind of quite personal.
Tavis: That's why I'm not an actor. I couldn't take the rejection that you have to take. I couldn't do it.
Wilkinson: Oh, it's awful. You think, "I can do this" and they say, "No, you're not. You're no good. It's not going to work for you." Then they give it to another actor and you think, "I'm better than he is" and all that kind of stuff. But the best thing, you know, if you've got my temperament, I walk away from it. I never regret anything, you know.
Tavis: I got thirty seconds left. I wanted to bring that full circle because I just met you for the first time twelve or fifteen minutes ago, yet I think that's why maybe you stay somewhat detached from your work even as gifted as you are because you know how temporal it really can be.
Wilkinson: Yeah, it is what it is. It's an incredibly enjoyable thing to do. It's a real pleasure, you know, when somebody says, "Action," and sort of walking through a door and saying, "Hello, mother." Fantastic. You know, eight hours a day of that is enough and then you go home and have a nice dinnertime.
Tavis: (Laughter) Well, I think you'll like "Michael Clayton." Again, a buzz already in this town about Mr. Wilkinson and what might be a forthcoming supporting actor nomination. But even if not, it's a good movie to go check out. Nice to meet you. Glad to have you here.
Wilkinson: It's a pleasure.
Tavis: Nice to see you. Thank you, sir.
Wilkinson: And you.
Back to December 7, 2007