Red / April 2011

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But that's the point of Macfadyen: he's all actor, and although he may be about to become a star, being dazzling off the stage and away from the screen is not his trade. 'The thing that is attractive about acting is that the curtain comes down,' he says, and as he talks he begins to light up.

'The point of being an actor,' he continues with great conviction, 'the whole idea of being an actor is that people don't know who you are.' He pauses and begins to become invisible again. 'If they know who you are you can't do it,' he says simply. 'You're f***ed.'

And although MacFadyen would have you believe that he can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in his life beyond the performances he gives on stage or screen, he then goes on to say something that suggests that even he is not immune to the fascination of actors. “I just loved the whole idea of being an actor. We were waiting by the coach to go back to school where I was, and I’d look at the stage door and think, these creatures — where do they live? Where are they going now? To the pub! Wow! What’s exciting is there’s a curtain that divides the audience from this other world. You want to see behind.”

"Sometimes you sound terribly pompous when you say things like this, but I don't want to see actors I really admire in Heat doing their shopping. You go and see a play and the curtain comes down, there's a line between actor and audience and I like that. If you've been on telly once, you can go to all the parties and that's fine, but it doesn't really matter what actors think about abortion or the war in Iraq."

During a peripatetic childhood in the Far East (his father worked for an oil company), he read actors' biographies "to a fairly obsessive degree. I think what I adored about these people - the Gielguds and the Oliviers - was that they would give these fantastic, life-changing performances and then the curtain would come down and the actor would disappear out the stage door and into the night. It's sad now, because actors are required to publicise their productions more and more, and that glamour has been lost. "I can't bear the endless magazine articles, the camera following you down the road. . . I still love that image of the curtain coming down and the actor being anonymous."

"Besides, the more you know about an actor the less interesting it is to watch them. As much as I want to know what Daniel Day Lewis has for breakfast, I kind of don't, because I want to watch him without any preconceived ideas."

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I think it was very nice of Matthew and Keeley to share and I'd like to say thank you for letting us fans share a few glimpses of your lives!!

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luce-bis a écrit:Les choses étaient plus simples, avant, quand on était acteur de théâtre : on peut lire déjà une profonde nostalgie dans ses propos, cités plus haut... Matthew disparaît pourtant littéralement de la scène publique dès qu'il le peut - nous en savons quelque chose, n'est-ce-pas ? - mais dès qu'il sort, il est pris : il a dormi au théâtre ! Il a laissé pousser sa barbe ! Et d'ailleurs, je vous demande : met-il la barbe sur ou sous le drap quand il dort ? Trop tard, trop tard pour lui : il lui faut vivre avec...

luce-bis a écrit:Alors, je ne vais pas dire le contraire : je n'ai pas aimé lire cet article, effectivement plutôt lié à la manière dont Keeley traite avec la presse de sa/leur notoriété. (Mais je ferais très attention au "syndrome Marie-Antoinette" ou même famille Traboulsi, pour être plus moderne !) J'y vois en même temps, non pas une trahison, mais plutôt une tentative, pas heureuse, de ré-accrocher le rideau autre part, à la recherche d'un fil quasi-invisible, alors que, même au théâtre, le rideau de scène a disparu...

Marina a écrit:We should know them well enough to be sure that they never would merchandize their family life / their children, like some other celebrities do.
I'm not very happy with this article, but I don't consider it as THAT bad. We should not dramatize it.

georgiana a écrit:Ça va bien, Matthieu?
J'espère que votre colère est retombée. Pensez que tous les gens font des erreurs et l'industrie du cinéma exige de plus en plus de publicité pour les acteurs. Sinon, on ne les embauche pas et ils ne travaillent pas, sauf les «élus» qui sont très rares dans le monde.
Muxuak.

Doris a écrit:Indeed, the article is very surprising, but I think there is a message behind it and that it was well considered before it was published. The message seems to be "Here we are - a happy family, nice little kids... we show them to you once and want to be left in peace afterwards... please!"
You are right, Matthieu, normally it is not MMs nature and style to be that open with his privacy but to me it made the impression that it was a necessary move on the chessboard of publicity. You have to deal with the media somehow... and you have to do tradeoffs then.
Please don't be that angry with him - and with us! Je te prie!

georgiana a écrit:Tengo la impresión de que Matthieu se ha enfadado de verdad, mucho. Y que está pasando de seguir la carrera de Matthew como antes.
¡C'est dommage! Estará enfadado porque dicen que de momento no quiere trabajar, solo cuidar de sus babies. Y Rupert Penry sí hará PL en Nueva York.
Yo había pensado ir a conocer N. York, qué pena que no haga la obra.