Peter Capaldi has done it all in his time — now he’s doing his Basil Fawlty routine, as he tells Merle Brown.
Hotel, Sunday, Ch 5, 9.00pm
Peter Capaldi is probably one of the most down-to-earth Oscar winners you could ever hope to meet.
There are no pretences about this 42-year-old Scot.
He has one of the famous statuettes sitting on his bedroom mantelpiece in his London home, but admits it has seen better days. Like, so Peter says, his career.
“It’s a lovely thing,” he says. “I keep it in the bedroom on the mantelpiece. It’s very sweet, really, and very heavy.
“Not that I let anyone touch it you understand,” he adds with more than a hint of a wry smile.
“But that’s because I am sure the gold is starting to come off it. It’s flaking. A bit like me and my career.”
Peter laughs heartily following this statement. This is a man well aware of his talents.
He won the Best Short Film Oscar in 1994 for Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life, which he wrote, directed and produced.
He’s starred on Broadway, in London’s West End and is a highly acclaimed theatrical actor.
But he’s also made movies, and has notable TV appearances in projects such as the BBC’s Crow Road, The Vicar Of Dibley with Dawn French, and Channel 4’s 1999 drama, Psychos.
He has a voice that would melt butter, and he’s a highly intelligent man.
But ambition is not something that oozes out of him, as he explains.
“I like doing anything that’s good,” he says. “Particularly when I need to pay the rent. Then I like doing all sorts.
“Seriously though, it’s just great to be able to do what you like doing.
“I just want to carry on. It’s not a competition — it’s just about getting to work with interesting people and having a nice life with family and friends. That’s what it is for me.
“I am sure that sounds incredibly naff, but that’s what it’s about. This can be a competitive and stressful business if you choose to throw yourself into it, but I can’t be bothered. I just see what happens really, see what turns up and do it.”
This year, Hotel has turned up, a one-off Channel 5 film described as Die Hard meets Fawlty Towers.
Peter, as hotel manager Hilton Gilfoyle, is the John Cleese of the cast.
He was asked to do the show, and admits he enjoyed the rather off-the-wall script — and the stack of talent that makes up his co-star list.
Paul McGann plays the Nearby Hotel’s assistant manager, Keeley Hawes plays the receptionist, and Lee Majors plays the president of the United States.
Peter explains: “It’s a spoof on a thriller film. You know the one where Harrison Ford plays the president of the US, and his aeroplane gets hijacked — all that kind of rubbish? Well this is a spoof of that. The president’s plane is attacked and he has to take cover in the miserable hotel we run.”
Peter says the hotel is a little different from Basil Fawlty’s infamous Torquay establishment.
“It’s not really Fawlty Towers,” he says. “It’s more like one of those really depressing heritage places where all the staff wear green blazers and uniforms and they always promise what they can’t deliver.
“You know, the menu is full of pretentious things, like baked brie, but you know it’s come straight out of the freezer into the microwave.
“God, I sound like a terrible snob, don’t I? But you know what I mean.”
Peter is not snobbish at all about doing TV, indeed it’s something he enjoys.
“I am very comfortable doing film for TV. I like the process, it’s very social. When you write, although it’s interesting you are stuck in a room all alone for a year.
“As an actor you have much more fun because you get to go out. I was asked to do this as well, which I thought was very nice, and when I read the script I thought it was funny.
“It is quite rare to find that, believe me. And anything that makes you laugh when you are sitting in the kitchen is well worth having a go at. I was also very impressed by the cast for this project as well. I knew it was going to be fun.”
Following this Channel 5 venture, Peter is back at the movies in the spring with the release of the first full-length feature film he has written and directed.
Cocozza’s Way (previously Strictly Sinatra) is a project dear to Peter’s heart.
“The film came from my interest in club singers. The lead character is one of those crooners.
“I have had a go at singing myself in my time. I think I’ve had a go at nearly everything,” he says laughing.
“I just love those club singers. Guys with bad haircuts and too much jewellery that honestly think they are as beguiling as Frank Sinatra.
“I love that kind of rubbishness about them. It’s right up my street. They are so cool and of course, at the same time, tragic — as the film is in the end.”
Tragedy stuck midway through filming when veteran actor Ian Bannen was killed in a car crash.
Peter admits that the filming was, at times, fraught. “It was tragic when Ian died, really tragic. It was stressful making the film, but good. Well, I think it’s good, the world might disagree, though, mightn’t they?”
But you get the feeling as long as Peter enjoyed making the film, he won’t mind. He’s already had a taste of the very top, of course.
“You know I have won an Oscar and it was fantastic. The whole night was lovely.
“It wasn’t for acting, or directing a big film, and maybe that confused people, but it was fun to win and get up on that stage.
“You’re standing up there going that guy looks like Steve Martin and that guy looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger — but it is them.
“And they’re all smiling, because everyone is so incredibly insincere.
“But you just smile back and enjoy. It doesn’t get much better than that really, does it?”
By Merle Brown for The Daily Record.
(Source: highbeam.com)