| Douglas Henshall was interviewed on the Simon Mayo show on May 14th 2009 on Radio Five Live. Here is a transcript of the interview: Simon Mayo : French Film. It’s not French though, as you might have realised. It stars among others, Douglas Henshall. Hello Douglas . Douglas Henshall: How are you Simon? I’m very good. However, you’re eating well or you’re doing something right, because the last time we spoke at the beginning of Primeval........... Yeah You looked a lot older than you do now. You look about ten years younger! Are you really Douglas Henshall? (Dougie laughs). No, I don’t know what that is. I haven’t been doing very much for the last couple of months so maybe that’s what it is. What have you been eating? Well, nothing different. What have you been drinking? Nothing different. I don’t know what it is. Must be a fluke. I suppose it’s dinosaurs clearly aged you enormously. Yeah that’s probably what it was. It was just stress, but now that that’s over, so everything’s going much better. So, French Film. We’ll talk more after the news; it’s just a couple of minutes away. It’s got nothing to do with the French apart from Eric Cantona. Just explain the movie. Well, the film to me seems to be about the idea that whatever your idea of being in love is, if you’ve got that then that’s great. And If you don’t have that then you’re in trouble. This movie seems to centre around four people who’ve discovered that maybe they’re not in the ideal relationship after all and possibly the French know how to do it properly. That’s just a stereotype, a convenient stereotype around which you’ve hung the film. Yeah, but then aren’t most films that way? So it’s you and who else in this film? Hugh Bonneville, Victoria Hamilton, Anne-Marie Duff, myself and Eric Cantona are the protagonists in this film. High Bonneville plays a journalist, who’s writing about films and it’s his job is to go out and write about Eric Cantona, but at the same time he’s asks his partner Vitoria Hamilton to get married and she says ‘No. ‘Instead of going to talk about about that, he finds himself going off to relationship counselling with none other than a Frenchman. Victoria Hamilton’s a nightmare. Victoria Hamilton’s a nightmare? Yes, the character. Did you watch the film? Yeah Ah right, but you think she’s a nightmare? Yeah. I watched the first half. She was just driving me mad. I felt extremely sorry for Hugh Bonneville . (Dougie laughs). Ah, well, if you’ve only watched the first half, once it gets round to the second half, then you kind of see it more from her perspective. Well, she’s a nightmare to start with. Oh, okay then. I’ll take your word for it. You in contrast are a delight and a dream, so maybe you become a nightmare and it flips over in the second half . There is a break for the news and sport Dougie, you’re a Chelsea and St. Mirren fan. Is that correct? I’m a St. Mirren supporter for my sins. We just went bottom of the league last night. We lost to Kilmarnock and Falkirk won at Hamilton. So, how many points are you behind? I think there’s goal difference and one point below Falkirk now. Would you say you’re one point west of Falkirk? At the moment yeah. (refering to the sports news). I don’t really understand what Arsene Wenger just said. It’s not just the defence, if you watch Adeybayor in the last few games it’s their attack as well, all their talent is in the middle. There is more sports news before returning to the interview. They want to know what Eric Cantona is like as an actor. Well, you see unfortunately or fortunately for him I didn’t get to meet him, cos he was only in for a couple of days and I wasn’t in any scenes with him, but it was probably just as well ‘cos from what i hear he doesn’t really like to talking about football and I don’t think I could have met him without talking about football. So, it probably would have been just as well that I didn’t get to meet him. So, he’s a French Film director? That’s right. Thierry Grimandi is the character he plays. A legendary French Film director. A legendary French Film director, Thierry Grimandi, as played by the legendary Eric Cantona. A sound clip from French Film featuring Eric Cantona is palyed. Playing comedy Frenchman. Well, I don’t know it’s probably the way he speaks English actually. He’s going to be a guest on this programme on the 5th of June so thanks for the little tip there that he doesn’t want to talk about football. Yeah, yeah be careful. So, it kind of revolves around him then without him interacting with the rest of you? No, he eventually comes and does an interview with Hugh Bonneville at the NFT. Once Victoria’s stopped being a nightmare? Yeah, yeah. Another sound clip from French Film is played, this time featuring Douglas Henshall . We started off with a little bit of Django Reinhardt there in the background and then we get a fully fledged French accordion there. So you are a pretty messed up character? Well, that’s how it would appear, but it turns out that maybe not so much. There’s a possibility that he got this idea from a film. Directed by Thierry Grimandi? (In agreement) As directed by Thierry Grimandi. You’re a fantasist. No. He’s an actual believer in what Thierry Grimandi calls hard beginnings. You can’t judge how long or how well a relationship might go. Marcus is the kind of guy who if he had to to jump off a cliff, he would probably be more concerned about how he went off rather than what would happen when he hit the bottom. You know, get the first bit right, worry about everything else later. Is it funny?Did it make you laugh? Yeah, actually. There was a screening of it last weekend. I went with a couple of people that I know, who are friends of mine, not prone to laugh supportingly and they kind of laughed all the way through it. They were pretty straight about it. It wasn’t an invited audience either it was BAFTA members, but they laughed all the way through it, so I think there were probably no harsher critics. You must be finely tuned to the comments from friends and family when they are trying to be supportive. So they say, ‘Well it was very nice’. You know everybody‘s got the thing that they say. If you go and see somebody else’s opening night or whatever, you can’t go round saying ‘Oh that was terrible wasn’t it? The kind of stock thing if you haven’t necesarily enjoyed it, you kind of go “Well done. Well done!” that’s my kind of stock thing". So that’s kind of like I didn’t really like it you know? If somebody comes out and gives me a hug and goes “Well done”. I know that it probably wasn’t that great. Well done that must have been very tough for you or it must be very difficult? Yeah, anything. This is from Steve on an email : Simon, as a fan of Primeval, please could you ask Douglas as to why he left the series. I was among a number of fans who was disappointed about the way they killed the character. (Dougie laughs) He was shot in the chest by your horrible wife. There’s another wife who’s a nightmare! Yeah, she’s a genuine nightmare! She’s a genuine nightmare, but she’s a nightmare with a gun. Yes exactly. Which kind of changes it round a bit. Perhaps getting him stuck in the past having gone through the anomaly might have been more fitting, although I think a similar storyline will soon involve the other characters will have without giving anything away. So, why did you leave and what did you think of the manner of your ending? Well, I don’t know, the manner of...........I left because I’d kind of been around for two and a half years on that and I thought it was time to move on to something else really, that was it and I gave the show kind of notice that I was going and as far as the way that they decided to end me, I don’t know, maybe Adrian wasn’t particularly happy about me going and he thought ‘ Well,I know we’ll get you shot then’. I don’t know. So, they were disappointed that you decided to bow out.? I don’t know. Well, let’s hope that they were. It was your show. They should be fairly disappointed yeah, but I think it seems to be doing fine without me. But it isn’t the same. Have you tuned in on it lately? I still watch, yeah. It’s your show. I know. I do feel a little bit like that, but that’s why I still watch it, I just want to see what happens and what they’ve done with it. You don’t want it to do too well without you. No exactly, all things kind of you know, said. I still want it to be successful and I still want it to go well and do more series and I still want it to go well. I just don’t want it to do too well. Would it have been better to have been eaten by a dinosaur? I think so yeah or to have disappeared somewhere or other. I don’t know. Because if you’d just disappeared at least there would still be the chance that you could come back. Ah, well that’s maybe one of the reasons they decided to do that so that they didn’t have to bother with that kind of speculation, especially when you have new characters coming and they want to get a focus on them rather than focus on someone who’s not in it. But was it a difficult decision to take? To leave? Well,Yeah. It seemed to me that the show was becoming bigger. There’s more episodes every year, which means a greater percentage of your year is taken up, you know, six months, seven months is a lot of time to be running away from monsters. So has it been getting bigger since you left? The third series was seven months long and I think if there are plans for a fourth it will be longer still, so yeah bigger in that sense. So, that obviously means that you have the freedom to go off and do other things like French Film. What else are we going to see you in Douglas? Well, I think I’m gonna go to Serbia to do a film there called How I Was Stolen by the Germans. Are you just making this up? Yeah. I’ve actually got nothing to do and this is just off the top off my head! We’re talking about European films, the French, the Germans must be next! No, it’s a bone fide movie about a wee boy who was adopted by a German commander during the war. It’s a true story and I’m gonna go and play this German commander. The thing that’s worrying me slightly about it is that I have to do a lot of it in German and I don’t speak German, so that’s kind of a slight worry, but it’s a beautiful story. So we look forward to that and I was just wondering in French Film when you look at someone like Eric Cantona, who obviously has a great following many admirers around the world just based on his football skills and he wants to be an actor. There must be you know within the actors union , you must look at footballers trying to act and think “Excuse me we go out there and make a living out of playing football. Leave the acting profession to those who know what they’re doing. I think today. I don’t really think it matters what with so many people desperate to be famous or to do something. Eric Cantona has got an enormous amount of charismas when he played football and the thing with him is he does actually carry it across to the screen so I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with anyone trying to be an actor. Is he a good actor? Well. I think he is actually, ‘cos as I say, I think he’s got huge charisma on the screen. It didn’t stretch him this role really did it ? Well, not particularly, but I’m sure he’ll come up against other things in the future that probably will and then we’ll find out. The thing is every actor’s dread is to be found out that they’re not quite as talented as they thought they were. You either do or you don’t, but Eric Cantona as an actor’s got talent. Well, we’re play that to him ‘cos when he comes on the programme on the 5th of June. He gets your full support. Douglas, fantastic to have you on this programme again. When does the film come out? It comes out tomorrow (May 15th 2009), in the Apollo West End, so go and see it please. What just in one place? No, I think it’s on two screens it’s on. Just two screens at the present moment, so go and see it so they’ll have to give us more. Are they both in London? They are indeed. There’s one on at the Vue cinemas as well. People could get very cross about that. They’ve just listened to all the interview thinking ‘This sounds very good. I’d like to see Douglas in this, Anne Marie she’s great, Hugh Bonneville and Victoria Hamilton,she’s a bit of a nightmare’, but they’re intrigued by it and it’s only on in two cinemas. I know, but at least one of them’s in the West End. I want to complain. Who do I complain to? I don’t know. I don’t know who you would complain to about that. Cinemas, in general . Cinemas in general! Head of cinemas. Douglas great to have you on as ever. Thanks very much for coming, I appreciate that. Douglas Henshall, the star of French Film , the difficult to find new British comedy. But well worth hunting out. |
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