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 try to be fussy about the parts I play. I think that's quite prudent, it means you're stretching different muscles, and you're scaring yourself by doing something which is out of your comfort zone.
I think it sits quite happily with me, the condition of being an actor. I see some people getting quite eaten up with it, with the insecurities. There are times when I long for continuity and stability, but I also love the idea of not knowing what I'll be doing next - or even if I'm going to work.
I would hate not to do a play every couple of years. I think it's not me.
You never know how films are going to do and it is daunting if I think about it.
People like to think that actors are terribly worried about ghosts of other actors in the parts they play. But you just have to get on with it.
The security comes, as an actor, in knowing that you're not in control. If you try to control your career, or how people perceive you, you'll make yourself unhappy, because life doesn't work like that. So much is luck. It's much better to let yourself off, to think, 'There's nothing I can do.'
I think people ought to do what they feel useful at the time. If I do things because I ought to do them, I switch off.
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.