After beefing up to play a boxer in Sucker Punch and spending six weeks on a roof for New Orleans drama Lower Ninth, Anthony Welsh is back on stage playing a very enthusiastic American who, despite the different accent, sounds suspiciously similar to the actor himself, in Ella Hickson’s Precious Little Talent.
CV in brief
Age
27
2008 Made professional stage debut in The Brothers Size at the Young Vic
2009 Appeared in Simon Stephens’s Pornography at the Tricycle theatre
2010 Starred in the Royal Court’s Olivier Award-winning production Sucker Punch
2010 Starred in Lower Ninth as part of the Donmar Trafalgar season
2011 Currently starring in James Dacre’s production of Precious Little Talent at Trafalgar Studio 2
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the Ealing area, went to school in Drayton Manor in Hanwell and was born in Hammersmith in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital. West London born and bred!
What/who got you interested in acting?
I started acting when I was about 20, 21, mainly because I didn’t apply myself very well for my A-Levels and my uncle suggested I try acting because I enjoyed it in school. I did an evening course at Richmond Drama School and then I did a full-time foundation course and then I got into LAMDA straight after, so it was like a snowball effect.
Did you find the transition from drama school to finding work hard?
I was in my third year, just coming into my last term, and I got The Brothers Size which went on in the Young Vic and did a bit of a tour as well, so I got to leave a bit early to do some theatre work. I was fortunate in that sense definitely.
Tell me about your current play Precious Little Talent.
Without ruining too much, it’s about a father and daughter who have become estranged over a couple of years and the dad fled to New York from London. She comes over [to New York] to find out why he left and where he’s been, and she ends up meeting a young American, who I play, and they start to have some sort of romantic relationship.
I’m his [the father’s] carer, but the dad doesn’t want that to be revealed to his daughter because he’s suffering from an illness and she doesn’t know this.
I’ve probably made it sound a lot more complicated than it actually is! But it’s really well written, Ella’s [Hickman] such a great writer, and it’s a nice short piece to have fun with.
What is your character like? Are you anything like him?
I guess I am a little bit I suppose. He’s really enthusiastic! He’s extremely optimistic and he gets to talk to the audience quite a bit so the audience get to hear his inner thoughts as well as what he likes to project to Joey, the other character. I think he is a lot like me but I probably have the ability to be a bit more cynical at times than he is.
The conflict of the piece is, Joey, Olivia’s character, is really cynical and quite harsh and aggressive, and then there’s me who is quite optimistic and outgoing – everything’s beautiful and whatnot – and it’s the extremes of the American attitude versus a British attitude.
You have played Americans in a lot of the plays you have done. Is that a coincidence or are you just really good at accents?
You know what’s really funny is when I started drama school everyone could do an American accent and I couldn’t do one to save my life! I was really trying and I couldn’t understand how people were doing it. But it’s true what they say, it’s just practise and I practised, practised, practised. But I have played a lot of Americans and I’m not sure exactly why, maybe it’s a hint for me to go to Hollywood!
The play looks at people’s disappointment at not fulfilling aspirations. As a successful actor, is that hard to relate to?
No it’s very easy to relate to actually because I think success is relative. I’ve had this conversation with a few people before and although I can look at myself and maybe compare myself to people who were in my year at LAMDA and think ‘You know what, I think I’ve done really well. I’ve been working consistently, I’ve got a good agent, I’m working in good theatres, I’ve met a lot of people’ and in that sense I’m doing really well. But I look at my counterparts and people whose careers I really admire and I think ‘Oh f**k! I’m not doing anything compared to them.’
What was it like working with James Dacre after his success with The Mountaintop?
It was a lot of the reason why I took the job on because I saw The Mountaintop in its last matinee at Trafalgar Studios and I was blown away by it and the performances, so when I heard James Dacre wanted to see me, I was like ‘Yes! Let’s do it!’ I hadn’t seen Ella’s work before but I’d heard about her and a lot of friends had worked with her and said she was great, so it was a no-brainer.
I was actually planning this year to focus more on getting screen work, but then this play came along and I thought ‘I’d be stupid to turn this down.’ They’ve been so supportive and really good in rehearsals and, with my character in particular, I’ve had to do a lot of experimenting and a lot of failing, which you have to have tough skin to do, but they were really supportive of all of it.
You worked on your first feature film recently, how was that?
Red Tails is a big feature, but to be honest I only had a small part in it. But that was the first thing I’d ever done on screen and it was Lucas Films, George Lucas working with Cuba Gooding Jr and Terrence Howard, and I was like ‘Oh my days! I want to do this for the rest of my life’ [laughs].
All of the main cast were Americans, apart from David Oyelowo who’s British and he had a lead part and I just thought to myself, we don’t have the same opportunities over here being a young, black actor. We don’t have a movie being made for us where we can all come together. I left that set so inspired and I was like ‘every audition I go into I’m going to kill.’ I’m not sure I did kill every audition but I killed a few!
Do you want to do more films or would you rather stay working in theatre?
Right now I really want to do screen, but that’s because I’ve been doing quite a bit of theatre. But I imagine that once I’ve done a bit of screen I’m probably going to want to do some more theatre. It’s somehow just trying to find the balance… and screen pays so much more and I need to move out of my Mum’s house! So some money is much needed right now [laughs].
A year ago you were in the award-winning Sucker Punch, what was it like working on that?
That was an amazing experience. Every show’s special but I’d never done anything like that before. I’ve always looked at movies like Rocky or Raging Bull and wondered what it’s like to really dedicate yourself for three or four months and really immerse yourself in the world of boxing, and I got to do it for a play which has never been done before.
Me and Dan Kaluuya just worked so hard, mostly out of fear, not even because we just wanted to be good, because we were scared of looking really sh*t and not looking like boxers [laughs]. We trained from the end of January all the way up to the show which opened in June. They gave us a nutritionist, we had a personal trainer who was also a boxing champion in his day, Errol Christie, we trained with him three days a week. We also had to do training on top of that in-between. I was on a diet; it was crazy man.
Have you kept up the boxing?
[laughs] Oh man, everyone asks you that and no I haven’t! I said to myself I was going to give myself a week to eat anything I wanted; burgers, chips, ice-cream, custard and cake – that’s my favourite – and that week really didn’t ever stop. And then I went into another production, Lower Ninth with the Donmar, and I injured my knee so I’m not allowed to do a lot of the stuff I was doing before.
You injured yourself during the production? You just had to sit on a roof for that didn’t you?
I know! Thanks for rubbing that in my face even more! I had to do a lot of crawling and kneeling and stuff and even though they gave me knee pads it wasn’t enough and one night it just blew up on me, so I’m still recovering from that. But I’m gutted because Daniel’s still in training and I’m annoyed because I’m not allowed to do anything. Roy [Williams] is working on the Sucker Punch movie, which hopefully we’ll be involved in, so I’ve got to get back in shape ASAP!
Is a film adaption definitely on the cards then?
Hopefully, fingers crossed. I think he’s in talks and he’s writing so hopefully it will work out. But it’s got to happen soon, because the characters were quite young and I’m only getting older.
How did you feel when Sucker Punch was nominated for two Olivier Awards?
We were over the moon man. It was beautiful for us because we’d worked so hard for half a year of complete dedication, more so for Leon Baugh and Sasha Wares.
I’d kind of felt that Sash had got snubbed at a few of the awards because Daniel had got Best Newcomer and it was nominated for Best Set Design and Best Play, and I think it’s a bit silly to not think the director had anything to do with those three things, and she worked so hard on it. I’m slightly biased of course because I saw all the work she put into it, but I think she made an even better production of a great play, you know.
Then Leon got the Best Choreography award and we hadn’t seen them since Sucker Punch and they’d had a lot of trouble with the birth of their newborn so we knew how much of a hard time they’d had, so it meant even more when they won. We were at the back of the Oliviers, me and Daniel wearing suits, and we just screamed.
What is your favourite thing about being on stage?
If I talk about the play I’m in now, I get to talk to the audience and my favourite thing is I really get to see how people react to what I’m saying. Last night I had this lady who was looking at me like she couldn’t wait for me to carry on speaking and I absolutely loved that.
And the worst?
The moments I hate the most when I’m on stage in this play is when I feel like we’re not on top of it or not hitting the cues like we should be and I feel like we’re losing the audience. Most of the time I’m actually quite wrong and you come off and people give you a whole load of great news. Maybe I’m just a bit hard on myself but I want to work really hard, I want to be really good at this.
You have worked a lot on new plays, is that something you are particularly interested in?
I never had a burning desire to work on classics. I think they’re great and I definitely want to be involved in some but I’m really excited about new plays and new writing and new great parts. Hamlet’s fantastic and I’d love to play Hamlet, I hope one day someone casts me as Hamlet, but when you play Hamlet you get compared against 5000 other Hamlets that you’ve never even seen before. There’s something about being the first that I really like. And also you get to have your name in the book when it gets published!
If you weren’t an actor what would you be?
I think it would have to be something creative still. Maybe a writer. I admire anyone who writes, I think it’s such a tough profession man. You have to go through so much just to get something made. But I always used to like drawing, I used to like playing basketball, I used to rap [laughs], although I don’t think I’d rap anymore. I’m a bit weird, I love playing backgammon and origami. Even though it’s going to sound ridiculous I’d be a professional backgammon player!
Precious Little Talent plays at Trafalgar Studios 2 until 30 April.
CM