{"id":21356,"date":"2022-09-03T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2022-09-03T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1700447"},"modified":"2022-09-03T10:15:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T08:15:35","slug":"timothy-spall-for-the-first-time-i-became-something-other-than-an-actor","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/timothy-spall-for-the-first-time-i-became-something-other-than-an-actor\/","title":{"rendered":"Timothy Spall: \u201cFor the first time, I became something other than an actor\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Saturday, 03 September 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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When Timothy Spall filmed It Snows in Benidorm, the new film from Spanish director Isabel Coixet, the world was a very different place. The film \u2013 which premiered in Spain almost two years ago and finally opens in the UK this weekend \u2013 was shot at the beginning of 2020, just a few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic completely upended the way of life for millions around the world.<\/p>\n

It means that promoting the film now makes for something of an odd experience for Spall, who just like the rest of us had no idea what was coming at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just watched it again with my daughter and my wife,\u201d he explains during an exclusive chat with RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201cMy daughter visited us with my youngest grandchild when we were there, and while watching she said, \u2018It was like a different time!\u2019<\/p>

\u201cBut if we watched it a year or so ago, when we were all still in lockdown, it would have seemed even stranger. The way that human nature is and life is, when things come back to normal, even though the world has been through a bizarre trauma, the normal starts to seem normal again. For a while, the normal seemed extraordinary, which is most unusual!\u201d<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, that theme \u2013 the relationship between what might be considered normal and what seems extraordinary \u2013 is a key part of It Snows in Benidorm. The film sees Spall take on the role of meteorology-obsessed Mancunian bank worker Peter Riordan, who lives an extremely humdrum existence until he\u2019s forced into early retirement after a number of run-ins with his boss.<\/p>\n

This shock to his system prompts him to do something fairly radical, at least for him. Unsure what to do with his newfound time and freedom, he takes a trip to the titular Spanish resort town to visit his expat brother \u2013 only to find that his sibling has mysteriously vanished. On his mission to locate him, he gets drawn into a bizarre world that introduces him to a side of Benidorm that isn\u2019t often explored. And he even embarks on an unlikely romance with an acquaintance of his missing brother.<\/p>\n

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Timothy Spall in It Snows in Benidorm<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat I love about this film is that on the face of it, it\u2019s about a very normal man,\u201d Spall explains. \u201cA man who\u2019s almost decided he\u2019s going to disappear, he has such a mundane life. And he goes to a place which is well known for being a place where you get your rocks off.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd those expectations that other people have of Benidorm, and he might notionally have, he falls right in between the cracks of \u2013 not finding the whole Brits on holiday thing, but being introduced into this bizarre Spanish side of things, the working side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes, in a sense, almost like he\u2019s in somebody else\u2019s dream. The atmosphere is particularly unusual \u2013 it seems normal, but it isn\u2019t, he\u2019s thrown off centre.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is indeed a rather enigmatic film, and a hard one to easily categorise into a specific genre. So how would Spall himself describe it?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fish out of water tale, a chalk and cheese relationship and then a bit of a mystery,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the atmosphere and general tone of it, which you cannot ever judge in the script, I think is this slightly hypnotic, strange thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as a Spanish director, the film also boasts perhaps the country\u2019s most well-known filmmaker, Pedro Almodovar, as a producer (indeed, according to Spall, Almodovar was at one point interested in directing it himself). And that mixture of Spanish perspectives and his own English point of view, Spall explains, is part of what makes the film so fascinating and unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this kind of Mancunian everyman in the hands of a Catalonian auteur, who falls in love with a nightclub worker who\u2019s also got an exotic dance act,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, you\u2019re talking about a real mixture here \u2013 you know, something\u2019s gonna happen one way or another!\u201d<\/p>\n

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It Snows in Benidorm<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Spall himself got to experience this different side of Benidorm during filming, spending time with several of the performers who make their living in the various nightclubs and bars. The Elvis impersonator was particularly charming, he says, and there were plenty of other interesting personalities he met during the process as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a drag comedian, then there was a lady with a snake, the lady who produces the egg,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo there was this whole world that you saw when you were going into these clubs and into these areas and seeing it from another point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film also explores another part of Benidorm\u2019s culture and history that might not be known to most viewers: the resort\u2019s association with Sylvia Plath. The poet spent some time in the town on her honeymoon with Ted Hughes in the summer of 1956, and \u2013 according to the film, at least \u2013 shocked the locals by wearing a bikini. Although Spall had not been aware of that story prior to filming, he did know that Benidorm used to be a very different place than the one we think of now.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until the 1950s, before the big boom of package holidays, it was a fishing village,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd now it\u2019s, you know \u2013 for those who haven\u2019t been there \u2013 it is an extraordinary place. So, for it to turn into that in a matter of 60 years from this place where Sylvia Plath went with Ted Hughes to sit around is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It Snows in Benidorm<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Spall has been one of Britain\u2019s foremost thespians for several years now \u2013 and so it\u2019s no surprise that he has plenty of other projects in the pipeline at the moment. He\u2019s just wrapped shooting on Sarah Phelps\u2019 true crime drama The Sixth Commandment<\/a>, where he will take on the lead role of murdered school teacher Peter Farquhar<\/span>, while he also recently shot a film in Iceland titled Fearless Flyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve just finished a Sky Christmas movie,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe were all in overcoats, boiler suits, and balaclavas, with snow everywhere in 40 degrees heat!\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly that\u2019s pretty much the exact opposite experience he had on It Snows in Benidorm, where the film\u2019s metaphorical title came true just two days into the shoot. \u201cIt was winter,\u201d Spall explains. \u201cI mean, it doesn\u2019t look like it but it was actually the middle of winter. And believe it or not, on the second day I was there, it snowed. I mean, it was unbelievable \u2013 it was bloody freezing, there was snow in the mountains. It snowed in Benidorm!\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most exciting of Spall\u2019s upcoming projects is the Netflix film The Pale Blue Eye, which is directed by Scott Cooper and adapted from Louis Bayard\u2019s 2006 novel of the same name. Spall is one of many stars to feature alongside Christian Bale, Robert Duvall, and Gillian Anderson, and the premise certainly makes for intriguing reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s set in West Point Military Academy in 1846, I think it is,\u201d he says. \u201cThis unusual, slightly weird suicide happens. And they call in a recently retired New York detective, who would have been an early detective, which is Christian Bale. He comes to this area to retire and they ask him to come and investigate the mystery of why this has happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play the President, the guy who runs it, and he brings this detective in. And there is one particular renegade and slightly on probation cadet, who is one Edgar Allan Poe, who\u2019s actually at West Point as a cadet, and this film is an investigation into these unusual suicides and there\u2019s a very massive twist at the end of it.<\/p>\n

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Christian Bale in The Pale Blue Eye<\/span><\/figcaption> Netflix<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s kind of like an Edgar Allan Poe gothic horror, with Edgar Allan Poe in it \u2013 played by Harry Melling, an excellent actor that people might know from Harry Potter. So it\u2019s about this peculiar world that Christian Bale is thrust into and it\u2019s got one of the most extraordinary twists you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given how many characters Spall has played in his career \u2013 from real historical figures like JMW Turner and Winston Churchill to iconic fictional creations like Peter Pettigrew and Hamlet\u2019s Rosencrantz \u2013 it\u2019s interesting to ponder which roles have had the biggest impact on his own life. And Spall says that just about every role has affected him one way or another, even if it\u2019s just by opening his mind up to a new way of thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe late Ken Campbell said a wonderful thing,\u201d he explains. \u201cHe said, \u2018The thing is, actors always assume they\u2019re more intelligent than the character they\u2019re playing.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the great thing about that is if you\u2019re playing a really intelligent character, and you have to research what their job is about and what they do, you\u2019re going to end up slightly more intelligent. So my education has come mainly through the work I\u2019ve done, and I\u2019ve been an actor since I was 21, so I\u2019ve done all sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Timothy Spall in Mr Turner<\/span><\/figcaption> SEAC<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Still, some roles have affected his life more than others. \u201cWhen I played Mr. Turner, and then I played Lowry five years later, I learned to paint,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a very long research period for Turner, and then I picked up painting again when I was playing Lowry. And that led to me being offered my own exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen It Snows in Benidorm stopped, I got back home and the pandemic started, and for the first time in my life, I became something other than an actor. I painted seven days a week, for six months, eight hours a day, and produced these full 20 paintings for this exhibition. So that was an interesting thing \u2013 literally, life imitating art. Play enough painters, and you can become one!\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, Spall wouldn\u2019t want to turn into all the people he\u2019s played during his career. \u201cI\u2019ve played some awful characters,\u201d he laughs. \u201cHolocaust deniers and so on and so forth, and I can do without that! But my job has influenced me profoundly, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Big RT Interviews:<\/strong><\/p>\n