Opportunities for state school-educated actors have shrunk in comparison with their public school counterparts, according to Game of Thrones star Charles Dance.
Dance, who comes from a working class background, told the Radio Times that a decline in repertory theatre was partly to blame for a reduction in opportunities for state-educated actors since he started his career in the mid-70s.
“There are fewer opportunities now for people who come through the state education system,” Dance said. “I didn’t go to a public school but I know from people who did that there is a great drama department at Eton … and they have such charm and confidence.”
“There are more opportunities than in the state system, if there is talent there to be developed at that stage. And Old Etonians have enormous charm, Dominic West, Eddie Redmayne … they’re all delightful guys.”
Dance’s comments echo those of other actors from his generation, including Judi Dench and Julie Walters, who have in recent years lamented the lack of opportunities for actors from poorer backgrounds. Last year, then shadow culture secretary Chris Bryant got into a row with singer James Blunt over what he said was the over-representation of privately educated people in the arts in the UK.
A House of Commons report from 2014 found that 44% of those working in TV, film and music were privately educated, compared with about 7% of the population overall.
Dance’s first big on screen role was as Sgt Guy Perron in ITV’s 1984 colonial epic The Jewel in the Crown. Prior to that he was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Dance, who has played numerous aristocratic roles including Lord Stockbridge in Roger Altman’s Gosford Park and Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, attributed his regular casting in upper-class roles to the “way my face is put together”.
He appeared in the BBC’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None over Christmas, and plays world war one general Sir Ian Hamilton in Deadline Gallipoli, which follows war correspondents covering the ill-fated attack in Turkey and airs on UKTV from Saturday.
Charles Dance opened up about his working class background as he lamented the lack of opportunities for state-educated actors.
The 69-year-old distanced himself from co-stars such as Ampleforth-educated War And Peace star James Norton and Old Etonian Dominic West as he admitted his upbringing taught him to “value every penny that I earn”.
He told Radio Times: “It seems to me there are fewer opportunities now for people who come through the state education system. I didn’t go to a public school but I know from people who did that there is a great drama department at Eton…
“There are more opportunities than in the state system, if there is talent there to be developed at that stage.”
Charles might give the impression of high-class breeding but he claims the reality is opposite.
He grew up with his mother, Nell, a former parlour maid and father Walter, an engineer, in Redditch, before the family moved to Plymouth after his father’s death and his mother married her lodger, Edward
“I don’t come from a wealthy family. I pretend to be aristocratic because of the way my face is put together, but there is nothing aristocratic about me at all.
“I do a job that is quite well paid and I am very lucky in that regard. And I value every penny that I earn,” he said.
Charles’s fear of work drying up has led to taking roles he regrets, not just in retrospect, but even at the time of filming.
“I’m not as choosy as I perhaps should be, but I don’t like not working.”
Asked if he takes on roles that aren’t as good as they could be, he replied, “Yeah…there are one or two things, probably more, that I have done when I’ve thought, ‘Mmmm, I shouldn’t do that.’”
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/entertainment/14197573.Game_Of_Thrones_star_Charles_Dance
Game of Thrones star Charles Dance has confirmed that he will be appearing in the Ghostbuster reboot later this summer – but not as an out-and-out baddie as has been speculated.
The actor, whose Thrones character Twyin Lannister died following an unfortunate encounter on the lavatory with his son Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), told RadioTimes.com that he will be appearing in the movie, which had been rumoured but not officially confirmed.
"I’m a kind of straight man to a bunch of very funny ladies," he said of his role in the female-dominated film, which stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones as a new generation of Ghostbusters.
Asked if he is playing a goodie or a baddie, Dance added: "He’s neither really. He’s not villainous but he just doesn’t understand and appreciate the whole Ghostbusting thing. He is English as well."
The film is directed by Paul Feig with the final cut expected to feature cameos by stars from the original 1984 movie, including Bill Murray.
remember :
and Charles in the cast of Ghostbusters : ???
"Inverse has learned that Charles Dance, Tywin Lannister himself, will appear in an unknown role in director Paul Feig’s upcoming Ghostbusters reboot.
Feig’s representatives declined to comment on the casting news, but representatives at the film’s studio, Sony, confirmed to Inverse that Dance does in fact have a role in the new movie. They declined to elaborate any further."
http://aboutactorcharlesdance.blogspot.fr/2015/12/and-then-there-were-none-trailer.html
http://aboutactorcharlesdance.blogspot.fr/2015/12/and-then-there-were-none-trailer.html
Lots of great info here, thanks Vinal. Didn't know he was going to be in Ghostbusters remake, very exciting. As for the upper class succeeding in the arts ... "them that has, gets."
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