Linus Roache Interview on Mandy | Write Your Screenplay Podcast

Linus Roache, actor in Mandy, in conversation with Jacob Krueger on the Write Your Screenplay podcast Jake: I’m here with Linus Roache, a Golden Globe nominated actor that you probably recognize from Homeland, Vikings, Law and Order, Batman Begins, Chronicles of Riddick, Priest and a ton of other features and TV shows. Linus was just in Mandy with Nicolas Cage, so we’re going to be talking a little bit about that movie. And Linus is also a writer in his own right, so we’re going to be talking about his projects, what it is like to walk the line between being an actor and a writer, and how those processes are similar and different. Linus, after a whole career in acting, how did you come to writing? Linus: Yeah, well I think I’ve always had an idea or an ambition to write at some point. Even as a child, the idea of being able to write your own movie-- everybody wants to write deep down, I think. And I’ve always had a great appreciation for writers. I have a theatre background. I love playwrights. I did all the classical work of Shakespeare, so I’ve always had a great love of writers and what they do. I’m slightly in awe of them, and I never felt that I’d really be able to write. I could get a script and see what I didn’t like about it and try to change dialogue and things, but I could never really craft anything. But eventually, at a certain point as an actor you do realize that you're just a piece in a big, big puzzle, and you don’t really have that much power, ultimately (unless you're an A list actor who’s controlling everything like Tom Cruise or something like that).  And I’ve just reached that point where I’d like to be more creative. I’d like to bring more of the stories I want to tell to life. And, as you know my wife, Ros, who I co-write with, had a passion project that we wanted to turn into a screenplay. And I knew there’s no way you can just sit down and write a screenplay without some help. So, we looked around, and, you know, there’s all the usual suspects out there. And I think Ros came to see you doing a one-off little seminar and then we did Write Your Screenplay 1, 2 & 3 and then Pro-Track. You know just to say Jake it has been an invaluable two years that we spent doing that with you. Because, for me, for someone who has read-- I don’t know how many thousands of scripts I must have read! And I can immediately tell you what’s a good one and what’s a bad one. But I couldn't tell you how to make a bad one good or why something necessarily is that good. It is like taking the back of a Swiss watch and understanding how it all actually works. And it was the most humbling two years of work I think I’ve ever engaged in. In fact if I had known it was going to be that difficult I might not have done it! But I’m so grateful that we went on the journey and have learned something of the craft; it is a craft you never stop learning. Jake: Like acting. Linus: Just like acting, yeah. Jake: Movies get made when they’ve got great actors in them. And I think one of the thing that’s top of mind for all of our writers is, “What does a great actor look for in a script?" If you want a Linus Roache in your movie-- what do you look for when you're looking at a role? Linus: Well, it might be different things at different times but ultimately you're looking for a journey. You're actually looking for a journey of transformation that’s believable. You want to feel as you read like you're being carried through that journey. In a sense what happens I think when you read a good screenplay is you do see the movie. And for an actor it is almost like what I call "N.A.R.-- No Acting Required," because it is actually being, in a sense, almost done for you on the page. Of course you’ve got to show up and you’ll bring nuance to it, but when something is really well written, your job is to be a conduit and get out of the way and allow the story to guide you. I’ve often ended up in a situation where someone gives me something that’s "kindof good," its heart is in the right place, there’s a lot of good things about it, but the character isn't quite believable. And I’ve ended up joining in and trying to help shape things.  So when  you feel like you believe that journey, you go on that ride, and you know an audience is going to follow you, you're like, “Oh I don’t have to make stuff work! It works and I can deliver it.” Jake: Yes, and you can also deepen it too, right? It gives you the opportunity to play against the line or to find a moment of nuance that wasn’t there before, because you aren't building that primary structure. You're playing within it. Linus: That’s right. I think that word you just used, that’s been the big takeaway for me in terms of what I learned spending time with you learning to write: I learned more about structure. As an actor, I tended to be very subjective. You work on your scene, your moment, you make things real in the subjective point of view of your character, and you aren't really given the opportunity to stand back and look at the whole structural piece and get involved. It isn't your movie, not my duck, not my bottle. You know it isn't your movie and that isn't your job. But there are very few actors that actually think structurally. I’ve met one recently. I worked with one and it was fascinating. We were on a TV series together and he actually just inherently had the ability to see structure and he would take things we were doing in a season and say, “What if we did this? What if we did that? What if we did this?" And it would up the stakes for the journey of the characters. In long form TV right now, that’s a joyous ride to go on. But for most actors I think your role actually, your function, is to think subjectively, and actually sometimes come to the writer and the director and say, “No my character wouldn’t do that. That isn't true.” I was on a little indie-- I came back from Boston yesterday-- and in the end I spoke out and said, “This isn't true, what we’re doing isn't real.” We were getting this actress to do something and it just smelled of bad writing. And the irony was, the writer was there and he had actually written it first time round beautifully. But he couldn’t help himself. He just had to further mess with it. It was already good, and he just felt like he had to be doing something, and he actually destroyed his own scene. Jake: I should probably do a whole podcast on that!  How do you actually know when your script is done so you don't overbake it? It is just a big and challenging question. Linus: It is a really great question. I think a good example, I did Season 7 of Homeland and the writing on that show is superlative. My analogy is it is like getting on a Mercedes E class after driving an old Citroen Deux Chevaux. You know they’ve thought it out in the writers’ room. They’ve worked out what they need, what the wants are, what the points of view are. So when you actually hit it, it isn't restrictive to you as a performer. It actually helps you. You're very clear. So, I would occasionally think, “Maybe we should say ‘Da-da’ instead of ‘Da-da-da’” and they would normally come back with, “No, no there is a…” they had actually thought it through already. Because it is, in a sense, deeply personal-- that it is the story you want to tell, you need to tell. So they knew when that writing was done. Jake: Yes,  I think really that’s a really beautiful way of looking at it. And, in a way, the same when you're playing with a performance, right?  “I’m going to try this, I’m going to try that, I’m going to try this.” Linus: Right. Jake: Like an early draft, and then there’s this moment when you start to realize what it is. And you start to go, “No, I know intuitively it has to happen here.” Linus: And I think with great writing, when you’ve actually got it in place, it isn't rigid. When you come to it each time, it is actually fresh. If you truly find it, as an actor and performer and it is well written, you can do it 100 times. You don’t get bored of it. Because it is always alive, because it is true, it is real. It is accurate to that moment with those characters. Jake:  So many writers get sucked into is this idea that they've got to write the commercial thing or write the hooky thing. Linus: Right. Jake: And that works really well if you already have a career, right? Linus: Yeah. Jake: If you're a famous writer and you just made $100 million from your last movie, it is a lot easier to have a good idea and let that be attractive. But in early phases of a career, you have to distinguish yourself from all that stuff that’s "a great concept" but only okay execution. To get somebody to invest in you, you have to give them that thing that’s already complete. You want them to read your script and think, “Hey, this might be a hard project or this might be a new writer, or there might not be another famous person attached right now, but I see how this can work and this is so much better than anything else I’m reading.” Linus: Right, and I think that comes down to one of the things you spoke a lot about-- really, you know, it is true of any art form-- finding your voice and being willing to commit to your voice. Jake: Of course. Linus: And if you have the courage to pursue that-- I mean, you have to dig deep for that sometimes! Some people just have a voice and others of us have to actually fish around, and fight, and struggle and look, “What are these themes that are coming out of me, I don’t really understand them yet?” Then you have to curve them into something that translates and impacts people. When you tell that story that is deeply personal, that it is the story you want to tell, you need to tell, I think that does have impact. It finds its way through a lot of generic stuff, or a lot of  people trying to write formulaic stuff, or trying to fit into the existing structure of Hollywood. I mean, I think the films that I admire,