Matthew Macfadyen
Matthew Macfadyen
David Matthew Macfadyenis a BAFTA award-winning English actor, known for his roles as MI5 Intelligence Officer Tom Quinn in the BBC television drama series Spooks, Fitzwilliam Darcy in the 2005 film of Pride & Prejudice and Daniel in the Frank Oz comedy Death at a Funeral. He is also known for portraying John Birt in the political drama Frost/Nixon, as well as Detective Inspector Edmund Reid in the BBC series Ripper Street. In 2015 he starred in the Sky Living...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth17 October 1974
Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. Even the real monsters have to have a spark of something you can relate to.
I don't feel like a romantic lead; I guess I feel more like a character actor.
There's always a concern as an actor that you'll be boring unless your character is swinging from a chandelier.
You got the more sugary one. The Brits hated it.
I think I do have a good eye. It's quite liberating, being in a position to read a script and say, 'No.' It's really the only power you have, as an actor.
I don't think his behavior changes that much, ... It's the way people perceive him that changes.
I did four or five years in telly, and by the end of it was drained. I was a bit sick of myself. I didn't feel like an actor anymore. That sounds silly, but when you're doing a play you're using different muscles, and it blew all the cobwebs away.
Nobody's just arrogant. I've met people who are embattled and dismissive, but when you get to know them, you find that they're vulnerable - that that hauteur or standoffishiness is because they're pedaling furiously underneath.
I've worried more and more as the years have gone on. The more you're seen to be doing well, the more stress there is. You feel you ought to consider things more, and be more fussy - there's further to fall. All these little worries.
I wouldn't want to leave it so long before doing a play again, I get very stolid and sluggish if I do too much telly.
I'd auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and I didn't get a place and it was terrifying.
Apart from earning an awful lot of money, why would you go to Hollywood?
I was quite a shy child. I would get terribly nervous and throw up before my birthday party. And then I would be fine. I feel the same now. I get nervous, then it's fine.
No one will guide you in the right direction, in the end you have to learn for yourself. You have to grow up yourself.