Interview with Chris Rankin

What inspired you to become an actor?

My drama teacher, when I went to high school, a guy called Matthew Piper. Matthew is a genius; I blame him entirely for my whole career! I can speak for everybody in my school, whoever got involved in the school shows there; when he was there he was just amazing. He made drama something that you really, really wanted to do. After I joined high school, about two weeks after, I joined my local youth theatre where he also directed, and it went from there!

How did you get into acting?

Professionally? My first professional acting job was 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Stone'. I kind of jumped in at the deep end! Basically what happened was I saw something on the television - I'm a complete 'Neighbours' freak! I turned the television on to watch 'Neighbours' and caught the end of 'Newsround' on CBBC -"And finally Warner Brothers are holding auditions for a film of Harry Potter" - and they said, if you want to go for a part, here's the address, don't imagine you're ever going to get anywhere in it, you might get a part as an extra, but you never know. I wrote off to them, thought 'it's not going to hurt - cost of a stamp'. They said on the telly if you don't hear anything in two weeks, forget you ever did it. That was in April 2000, and in August 2000, I came home from holiday to an answer-phone message saying "Can you ring us; we want you to come for an audition". About five days after that, I had another audition with the director and the producers and two days after that they rang up and said "You start on Monday." And that was it, really. That was five years ago!

What do you like and dislike most about being an actor?

What do I like about being an actor? I've not had this one before! I got into acting, because I was always a really shy kid, I found it was a way I could get up and express myself, this is what all actors say, but I am much more comfortable being on stage. I've done public speaking, and I much prefer to go on stage as somebody else. I don't like standing up as me. I never have, and I never will. It gives me a buzz and it makes me happy, and occasionally the money's all right! If you're lucky, the money's quite good...! Dislike - unemployment! There's quite a lot of that! There's quite a lot of bitchiness. It's one of the most competitive jobs I think you could ever have. There's a joke - 'How many actors does it take to change a light bulb? 1, and 350 others saying 'I could have done it better.'' Apparently for every 1 actor that's employed in the world at any one time, there are about 18,000 that aren't. To be the one that's employed you have to be lucky... or good! I don't really dislike anything in particular about acting!

What are auditions like?

In general? Some of them are really bizarre. I've done all different types of auditions from the kind of the commercial ones where you sit in a queue with 700 other guys who look vaguely different to you in some tiny little way. The casting directors have gone, "Right, we want somebody 5ft 9½, ginger, shoulder length hair, stubble, looks a bit geeky..." I don't like those, because you go in, smile at the camera, they take your photo, go, "Are you free this week?", you go, "yes". You go home and never hear from them again. Nice auditions, the auditions where you never actually have to act. I've been to a couple of those, and they're usually the ones where I get the part! Which is a bit worrying! They're the ones where you go in, you talk to the director and the producers, and you have a chat. You've been given the script, you read it, and they say, "So, we're looking at you for this character - what do you think of it?" You say, "This is how I see it, this is how I'd play it," and they're much more interesting, because they're kind of more normal. I like people to see me as 'me', and not me trying. I don't like going into a room, and going, "I'm here! Please, please, please give me a job!" One audition I had was for a short, grit-Brit comedy, heavy British film kind of thing. I got given the script, and they wanted a musical prodigy - I play the violin, and the piano and I sing. They gave me the script and they said they were looking for someone who's a bit geeky, but a musical prodigy. I was reading the script going, "They wouldn't talk like that," so I went into the audition and I said, "Look, I'm not being funny, but this isn't how a musical prodigy would act.

You're looking for someone who's not that cool, and not that hip. This isn't written right, I'm not happy with this," and I walked out of the audition - I've never done that again! My agent gave me a thorough bollocking! He said, "You don't walk out on directors." I was like, "I'm sorry, he was a shit! The script was shit! The part was shit!" Auditions - they're funny things. They vary immensely. It depends what people want you for. I've been doing panto, I know full well that they don't want me for my acting talent, they want me because I've been in Harry Potter. All they're interested in is if I can sing a bit, act a bit and make people laugh. That's the way it goes. They're mostly all right, auditions.

What were the auditions for Harry Potter like?

They were just bizarre! They rang me one day and said "Right, we're emailing you this bit of script, learn it and we'll see you at 12 o'clock tomorrow afternoon," At which stage I panicked! The first audition I had was me, and the casting directors and a video camera. I'd learned my lines, acted it out. They said, "Do you want to come and meet the director and the producers?" I did exactly the same thing again, and they did a little improvisation with me, and went through, and tested me a bit. It was surprisingly easy, and I've had five years' work out of it! That was definitely a bizarre audition! I've had a lot smaller parts than that, that were a lot harder. It varies from director to director, and producer to producer.

What it is like working on the set of Harry Potter?

Very bizarre! I think quite a lot of people get this idea that you go into a film studio and it's just this amazing, glamorous place, you know - limousine, soft comfy chairs, and bars, and free drinks and people doing things for you. No...! It's damp, it's cold, and it's dark. You go in at 7 o'clock in the morning, you come out 8 o'clock at night - you don't see day light! There are no windows! It used to be an air-field; it used to be a factory. You go in to these big rooms, and somebody opens a door and suddenly you're in Dumbledore's office. It's bizarre! There's mould dripping down the walls outside, it's not a pleasant area, really. But it's nice, because everybody who works there, it's like one big family. Certainly on the first three films, everybody who worked there - production crew-wise, it's pretty much the same, so we know each other very, very well. We kind of kept each other sane! It's a nice atmosphere, even if it's not in a particularly nice place! But they treat us well.

You've done film and you've theatre. How different are they and which do you prefer?

I prefer theatre, because you get more of a buzz. In theatre, you do your two weeks' rehearsal, and you go on stage and you do it in front of a live audience, and essentially anything can happen. If the set falls down, you keep going, you don't go, "Sorry, better do that one again." It's more spontaneous, you get more of an adrenalin rush out of it.

Are the sets likely to fall down?!

Not that often. I've come on stage before now and tripped over something, and gone head over heels! It just makes things more exciting. You're not quite sure what's going to happen. Anything can happen when you're on stage. I had somebody, in panto a couple of years ago, have a heart attack in the audience. You kind of go, "Ok, what do we do now?" Film is completely the opposite, because you keep going until you get it right, and you can't do that in theatre. If you get your line wrong, you can't stop and do it again, you just bluff your way through and hope that everyone else is playing attention. It's very different. It's nice the two different genres, you get two different styles of acting. I did panto two years ago with a guy called Peter Simon, who used to do Live and Kicking. He was a bastard for just coming on stage and pissing around. He'd come on, and you could see it in his eyes that he had something planned, and he'd go off on a tangent, but you could always trust that he was going to come back to it, that at some point you were going to get your feed-line out of him! It makes life a lot easier when you know what's going on!

Have you ever had any embarrassing roles?

Not really. When I'm acting I don't really get embarrassed. People ask me this question a lot - "Would you ever do nudity on stage, would you ever get your kit off for a part?" - If it was right, if it was tastefully done, if it was necessary to the plot - yes. If it's part of the character, then it's not a problem. I'd do anything if I had to, as long as there's a reason for it. The most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me on stage was in pantomime this year. I was doing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in Derby - with Lionel Blair and Sherrie Hewson. It was the last night, and we had a little chorus of children, who make up the villagers and the dwarves. They played the small parts, bless them! They were very sweet. There's three teams of them, because you can't do 52 performances with the same seven kids. Two of the groups came in on the last night to watch with their parents. There was this scene I was doing with Sherrie, where I'd had the sword fight with the Prince, and she says, "Isn't he lovely, isn't Percy a beautiful boy?" Yes, I played Percy! One of the mum's went, "He's ginger!" Sherrie just went, "And how do you know?" I had to leave the stage, I was just pissing myself! I was so mortified! At the end, there's this little bit right at the end where all the bad characters - myself and Sherrie - get turned good. Sherrie had this line, and she'd always change it. She'd usually aim it at a guy in the audience - he's the one who gets the butt of the jokes all the way through the show. Usually she'd go, "Me and 'Bob' are going to run naked through Derby to raise money for this," or whatever. On the last night, she went, "Me and Percy are going to run naked through Derby to prove he's ginger," and Lionel Blair went, "Oh, he is!" That was the most embarrassed I've ever been on stage! And I'm never going to be allowed to live that one down!

I doubt you will! Apart from the Harry Potter films, what else have you been up to?

Good question! A lot of pantomime. I'm doing Telford again this year, playing King Rat in Dick Whittington, which is going to be fabulous! I'm really looking forward to it. Over the summer, I made a film for the BBC, called The Rotters Club, which was on BBC2 in January, which went really, really well. That was good, because it was the first thing I'd done that was professional where I wasn't playing a character called Percy, and I wasn't playing a school prefect. It was really nice to get my teeth into something a bit more edgy, and modern, and slightly less 'Hollywood' and glamorous. That was a lot of fun! For the last 15 - 16 months, I've been running a theatre company called Painted Horse Theatre Company.

How's that going?

Very well, I'm glad you asked! We did a production of Hedda Gabler, which we ran for a year, touring round the East of England! It was a really good show, and in February we opened this season's play, which is called Salome - which has been getting an awful lot of press, because there's full frontal male and female nudity in it. Apparently, it's shocking that we're doing it in Norfolk. If we were doing it in the West End, it would be absolutely fine, but no, no nudity in Norwich! Certainly no nudity in Sheringham! We hit the national papers about it. We had a full-page spread in the Daily Mail - two pages ahead of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war. It was like, "Hang on, nudity in Sheringham - a small sea-side town in Norfolk is getting more press than our troops beating up Iraqi soldiers - what going on there?" That's wrong. We had full houses every night! We're touring that [Salome] until about October time, and then we're doing a couple of other plays - Kiss The Spider Woman and Death and the Maiden - so that should be fun, but it is hard work! Technically, I'm Production Manager, but I'm usually in the plays - I'm in Salome. I'm not in the next two, because they're much smaller casts, and I quite enjoy doing the production management side of things - designing the posters, and being on the phone and going, "Yes, we need so many posters, etc..." I get to drive the van as well.

Is there anything else you'd like to try your hand in the future?

Everything! I'm quite into my lighting design - I do like the technical side of theatre. The good thing about owning and running a theatre company is that I can, essentially, do what I like! I can give myself whatever parts I like, I can do whatever plays I want to do, and I can do whatever I want, essentially, within the theatre company. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to do the design side. I'm not a director, I've tried that already, and I'm not good at that. Cinematography might be quite interesting. I'd quite like to have a look at making films. I'd also like to play a baddie in a James Bond movie.

Most people say they want to play James Bond, himself!

I know, but the likelihood of them ever casting a ginger James Bond, let's face it, it quite small! Baddies are always the best parts anyway...

Which is the better role, Goodie or Baddie?

Baddie! Much better, much more fun! Goodies are always miserable... and nice. Certainly in pantomime, playing the Baddie is much more enjoyable. You just get to be horrible to people for six weeks over Christmas. My record so far, is having the first 4 rows in the audience in tears! At a school show! I've succeeded, if I've scared them into not going near weird men! Baddies are great, they have all the fun!

You've worked alongside some great people - who have been the best to work with?

The same answer I always give - Julie Walters. She's a genius, a wonderful, wonderful person and I love her dearly. She's Mum 2! Mum - The Sequel! She's the best, she's a sweetheart. I went to see Acorn Antiques - the musical a couple of weeks ago. It was hilarious! It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in my life! Julie was amazing. The majority of the "famous" people I've ever met and worked with have all been really nice. I've been quite surprised at how nice they are. I've only met a couple of complete assholes, and one of them is dead - Richard Harris.

Oh no! Everything's all ruined....

He was an asshole. Mind you, he was a drunkard so you can't really blame him. He might have, ordinarily, been a very nice man, but he was always incredibly rude to me. Ulrika Johnson wasn't very nice either. I met her at the DVD launch of Chamber of Secrets, where I was incredibly drunk and I did tell her to fuck off, which is one of my claims to fame! Mind you, I got alcohol poisoning that night! Judy Dench was lovely - very short! In general, most people have been absolutely lovely. I've not worked with any egos, really, which is quite reassuring.

Ugh! I was expecting scandal!

No... no scandal here! They're all lovely people. Which is good, though, because I don't ever want to be a shit. I suppose it depends how people treat you as well. If people start treating you like this huge, demi-God, then you kind of become it, and you expect it. I treat people like I treat everybody else. I think it makes all the difference.

What's it like, working with the children?

They're brilliant, actually. The extras drove me up the wall, on occasion. Doing the Great Hall scenes, because of the child working laws, they could only work the extras for about half a day at a time, so you get two sets of extras each day. The Great Hall holds a capacity of 500 kids, so 1000 extras a day, all of them stage-schooly, Sylvia Youngs... Quite a few of them are quite nice. There was a group of them, who I did a lot of filming with on the first film. I had all the stuff, taking the first years up to the dormitory, and, "keep an eye on these bloody stair-cases." Some of them are very sweet, but most of them, after five hours were leaping, crawling up the walls! They fed them on sugar, I'm sure they did! The main kids are actually, for the 3 most famous children in the world, bloody good!

They are incredibly down-to-earth, and incredibly lovely. Daniel, who plays Harry, is slightly more nice than he should be. He's got time for everybody - which is good, but... too good! He's one of these people who'll go to a premier, and he will try and talk to every single person there, out of the 6000 of them. Which is lovely, but it's going to get him in trouble, if he's not careful. You've got to draw the line somewhere. They're good kids. I think the fact that Warner Brothers and the studios they film at, is such a close-knit community helps. We've all grown up together, from complete nobody's - to vaguely somebody's - to megastars, all at the same time. That's helped keep everyone on a level-heading with the kids, which is nice.

Who's your favourite character from the books?

Tom Riddle. He's a proper baddie. I like him.

What about from the films?

I do like Alan Rickman's Snape. He's lovely, he just so charming. He'd be a good Bond if he wasn't 58! Yeah, Snape probably, from the films is my favourite. I quite like Mr Weasley, as well. Mark, he's hilarious! He was in The Rotters Club that I did for the BBC over the summer. We filmed on the Isle of Man. I didn't actually know he was in it! I went down to breakfast one morning, and this guy came out of a room three doors down from me, and I went, "Mark?!..." "Oh, hello, son!" "What are you doing here?" "I'm doing a film called The Rotters Club," "So am I!" He was playing somebody else's Dad this time! He's a sweetie.

Percy Weasley - 1st book, he was lovely. 5th book - asshole! What do you make of it?!

I love it! I love playing assholes! There's more fun in assholes, it's a more juicy part to be nasty. You can have much more fun being nasty. You can go completely over the top; I mean, look at Alan Rickman in Die Hard - Asshole Central!

Where do you see your character going?

I've heard... Actually I can't tell you what I've heard! No, I can't tell you, because the book's not out yet, and I'd be breaking confidentiality. I've talked to J K Rowling, so I know what's going to happen, sort of!

Ok, where would you like to see him going?

I would like to see him become Voldemort's right-hand man! That could be quite fun! I'm pretty sure he's in there somewhere, whether he knows it or not. I think Voldemort might have coerced him into spying for him without Percy realising. Because Percy's such a power-nut, he'll do anything to get his way, and to get to the top. I'm pretty sure if somebody said, "I'll give you loads of money, and loads of power, if you just tell me this," he'd do it, not actually realising he was doing the work of the Dark Lord. It'd be interesting to see what happens in the 6th book, actually. I'm very interested to see the 4th film. I'll be very interested to see how they've cut Percy out of the film.

No! That's naughty! Shout at them!

I did! I rang them up, and was like, "What the fuck is going on?" The 4th book's the one where he's judging the TriWizard, and he's there all the way through it, but he's not in the film. I'm not quite sure what's happened.

I'll shout at them!

Thank you! It's a bit late; they finished filming 3 weeks ago! When I was in London, I went to see my mate Sean in a play. Sean's the guy who played Oliver Wood in the first 2 films - the "cute Scottish one!"

You said that, I didn't!

Bless him, he's lovely! He was amazed. I talked to him, because he wasn't in the 3rd film. He said, "When they cut me, at least the producer had the decency to ring up and say, sorry, but for the next film, we not going to be using you." Nobody has actually told me that I'm not in this film. Which is most bizarre. I don't really know where I stand. Essentially speaking, I'm still contracted to them, so I presume they can use me again, maybe for the 5th one. As far as I can see, if they've cut him out of the 4th one, where he's quite a big character, the likelihood of him being in the 5th one, where he's only in two scenes, even though he's bitched about all the way through, is pretty unlikely. Maybe, if there's a time to leave, 3 films is it, before I end up playing school prefects and assholes for the rest of my life! The way they're going, they will get 7 films out of the kids. I wouldn't ever want to be in 6 sequels! You'd never work again; you'd always be 'that boy from Harry Potter'.

Which one was your favourite to film?

The 3rd one. I like them all, they're all good fun. I enjoyed the 3rd one, because the director was more... I mean, Chris Columbus, who directed the first two films, I will not say a word against the man, because he's brilliant and he's lovely, and he's a fabulous director. Alfonso, who did the 3rd one took it that one stage further, and made us look at our characters, and go, "Right, why are you saying this?" He started to challenge us, making us improvise, and putting us through workshop, rehearsal kind of things, where he'd go, "Right, these are your lines, this is where the scene ends - just carry it on. I'm going to leave the camera running, just see what happens." It's made it that more interesting. It made you think, rather than just doing your lines, and going home - which is generally what film mostly is. You learn your part, you do your job and you go. It was more of a theatre-based atmosphere - where you look at your character, and you improvise round it, and I really enjoyed it. The 3rd film's my favourite; the 3rd book's my favourite. It was good, because he made it that bit darker, and that bit scarier.

© Tonie Spencer - April 2005