Like a lot of young, good-looking British actors, Hugh Dancy has spent some time in tights. In the Helen Mirren-led TV movie Elizabeth I (2005) he was the Earl of Essex, and in King Arthur (2004) he played the noble Sir Galahad. He's also spent a lot of time in TV versions of 19th-century literary classics- Madame Bovary (2000), David Copperfield (2000), Daniel Deronda (2002)—and he will star in an upcoming biopic about the Brontés. Even in The Jane Austen Book Club, slated for release next month, Dancy’s character has a vibe influenced by literary sensibilities.
Dancy's more recent work brings this 32-year-old Englishman a little closer to the present. In the upcoming Savage Grace, he's caught up in an early-1970s murder case, and in the just-released Evening, an adaptation of Susan Minot's much-acclaimed family novel, he appears in scenes set in the 1950s. But don't think Dancy's list of credits is entirely made up of stories that might be taught in English departments: He was in Basic instinct 2. Further Instincts are explored by Dancy in the conversation below with one of his Elizabeth co-stars, Toby Jones. The chat took place while Dancy was starring on Broadway in the now-closed World War I drama Joumey's End.
TOBY JONES: The last time I saw you, I didn't really see you.
HUGH DANCY: What do you mean?
TJ: Because of that terrible drink that we had two of—end that we should only have had one of.
HD: That's kind of the trend for Sunday evenings. You come out of the theater after a long week. You're too tired to go out but too tired to realize that you shouldn't go out.
Ts: Maybe that's what's been happening to you lately In New York City. In fact, the last time I saw you was not in New York but in Los Angeles. You'd just wrapped your new movie Evening.
HD: That's right. I'd just come from Rhode Island, where we filmed it.
TJ: How does it look?
HD: It looks great. Not only because a lot of great-looking people are in it, but also because Lajos Koltai, the film’s director, was a preeminent cinematographer for many years and worked with Istvan Szabdo, the Hungarian director of Mephisto (1981). Being Julia (2004), and many other films.
TJ: I remember you saying that the Evening cast was a very tight band.
HD: We were. It was a relatively short shoot. There are two time frames in the movie. An old lady is on her deathbed. with two grown-up daughters by her side. That old lady. played by Veneesa Redgrave, is in a delirium and recalls a weekend in the 1950s. I was in the flashback part of the film.
TJ: And Claire Danes plays the young version of Vanessa.
HD: Yes. And there are many other characters swirling around. To be honest, it's hard to wrap your head around the movie the first time you see it. Making it was quite difficult work. It was largely done in one house in Newport. The town has all these mansions from the 19th century there, from when the rich were getting European artisans to build enormous ballrooms for them.
They call this architecture Beaux Arts Classicism. It’s really horrendous.
TJ: This is pre-Vegas, I imagine. [both laugh)
HD: Whenever I went into the mansions, I always found that the only rooms I could sensibly imagine myself in were the servants’ quarters.
TJ: Because nothing else in any of those houses is on a human scale.
HD: Yeah. We spent five weeks filming in one of the smaller—and actually very beautiful— houses on a headland jutting out into the sea. There were many night shoots, so we played a lot of Scrabble.
TJ: Okay, well, this is the point where I should probably ask the prying questions.
HD: Like, how did you and your co-stars get on, and, was there any chemistry between you?
TJ: I never understand that question. But in terms of chemistry—
HD: We had chemistry, didn't we?
TJ: I think in a sense we did, because there was some sort of a quasi-homoerotic thing going on in Elizabeth I, wasn't there?
HD: Something experimental. [Both laugh]
TJ: Listen, how was it being away from home in England to do the Broadway play? Did you pine for England the way you pine for me? Because when I saw you the last time I got the sense that you had the blues.
HD: Really? I think, if anything, I was just tined. It wasn't because I wasn't happy to be wherever I was at the time. Not to overstate the case, but Journey's End was a pretty exhausting role—it's a lot of noise and drinking and nervous energy expended. But I've enjoyed it — which is greet because I didn't really know it I was going to turn out to be one of those actors that actually enjoy doing something over and over again.
TJ: One of the happy things about being an actor used to be ending up somewhere unreachable. Now it's easy to get a phone or Internet line anywhere, even in places like far-flung China.
HD: I'm not that brilliant at staying in touch with individuals I’ve worked with in the past
TJ: It is easy to stay in touch with e-mail, though. it's a sort of noncommitted commitment. (both laugh)
HD: Yeah. With my family, for instance. My brother lives in Toronto, and my sister has worked in Delhi.
TJ: I know your dad's an academic.
HD: My dad's a philosopher. He teaches part of every year at the University of Texas at Austin. When I was in Rhode Island last year. I turned on the television and saw that Texas had been voted the top party school in the United States of America.
TJ: I wonder the terms under which that assessment was made.
HD: It immediately upped the level of applications. (laughs)
TJ: Were you and your siblings raised as wayfarers of gypsies?
HD: Merely as lovers of the road. We'd go on long drives to get places. But I think that's just because we couldn't afford the airfare.
TJ: You like travel, don't you?
HD: I love it. I get really excited going to the airport. I like to hang out there. And there's no better way to be in a place than to be working and therefore keyed into it. You're with people from the place, and you see things in a completely different light You either hate the place or like it more.
TJ: Do you feel like you're a phenomenon at the moment? You seem to have so much going on. It's weird about that, though, because you can work on various things for years, and then a lot comes along at once.
HD: The fact that I have so many projects at the moment is absolutely coincidental. Sometimes an interviewer seems to imagine that you actually filmed everything simultaneously. By the way, have you ever noticed that interviewers in general love to talk about what it's like to be interviewed?
TJ: What's that about, do you think?
HD: I don't knew, but now we're doing it too.
TJ: Because normally when I talk to you, we don't have any trouble talking for hours and hours on end. About everything.
HD: It would be easier to do an interview in the privacy of one's own bathtub.
TJ: (laughs) But back to my earlier question: Would you say you're hot right now?
HD: I’ve just got more work fo talk about than usual. The heat, or lack thereof, is a completely external factor. In fact, it's invented, up until the point when it becomes true—when people become bigger than the work they're actuality in. I don't mean to say that I have horribly low sell-esteem. I just don't think that beyond my own world the hotness is necessarily real.
TJ: The world moves ac fast. There are so many organs of the media that it's very easy to be misted—
HD: Into thinking that somebody is exciting?
TJ: I don't ever fail into that trap. (both laugh) I wanted to ask you about another movie you have coming out later on, Savage Grace.
HD: Are you going to ask me if something funny happened on the set? (laughs)
TJ: Oh, I’d be rubbish at this journalism thing. Isn't that the worst question? (laughs) The movie's about the Baekeland family.
HD: Yeah, it's about the grandson of the man who invented Bakelite. it stars our friend Eddie Redmayne as the son of the dysfunctional wealthy couple played by Julianne Moore and Stephen Dillane.
TJ: And there's horse-riding involved?
HD: Well, I have seen a few photos of Eddie on a horse.
TJ: He's a fine horseman.
HD: He's possibly the finest horseman
TJ: Ready for cowboys and Indians.
HD: But there's no horse-riding for me. I do get to flaunt a fairly silly beard, though—another ambition ticked off the list.
TJ: Like when I played a hunchback with you in Elizabeth I. By the way, I'm about to start playing another hunch. I see old Notre Came beckoning me in the distance.
HD: Clearly, you're the only man for the job.
TJ: What wit you be doing after your Broadway run?
HD: I intend to have a boozy lunch that lasts for about four and a half days and spills over between restaurants Like something in a Hemingway novel.
TJ: I’ll come along for about 20 minutes.
HD: I’ll pencil you in - for one of the earlier slots.
Toby Jones played Truman Capote in infamous And is currently filming the comedy St. Trinian's. Above: Hugh Dancy wears a jacket and shirt by Z ZEGNA. Opposite: Vest, shirt, pants, and tie by POLO BY RALPH LAUREN. Skin products by KIGHL'S SINCE 1851. Hair products by CUTLER NYC/REDKEN. Styling: SAM SPECTOR. Grooming: LISA-RAQUEL/See Management. Special thanks: SPACE 515. Fashion details page 151.
