Was it interesting to play a priest, and try to find the humanity beneath a person who is, literally, holier than thou?
Yeah, they’re kind of these figureheads . . . It’s like the actors of the Hollywood Golden Age, where you watch them and you feel like you know them. But once they’re off-screen — because no social media back then — you have no idea who they really were. And that’s kind of like a priest, because it is a performance; they do their sermons and then once they disappear off into their rectory, who actually are they? How do you play that — someone who, in front of people, is very buttoned-up, but actually he’s a human being, and comes with all the same flaws a human being comes with.
The author of the novel, Richard Coles, has an interesting background – a pop star who became a priest . . .
Richard’s just a fascinating person. He’s lived many lives. If you get a chance to read his autobiography, Fathomless Riches, it’s lots of sex, drugs and pop music — the very antithesis of what you imagine a man of the cloth would be engaged in. And then he found God in the early 2000s, but still keeps so much of that irreverence about him . . . Richard himself will say one of the reasons why he became a reverend is that he’s always been addicted to being famous, and people hanging onto his every word.
Why is it that priests make for such effective and appealing crime-solvers in so many books and TV series?
I’ve tried to answer this question myself. I mean, the detective [Amit Shah] sees me as kind of a useful tool in the beginning, because I’m someone who knows everyone, knows their intimate secrets — which obviously are under the sanctity of confession, but still he’s aware of them and is someone who gets people to relax their defenses, perhaps? Someone who can catch people in a lie by mistake because of his earnestness.
But also, I was thinking about how priests and clergy, they’re inherently locked up with death and the Beyond and the spirituality of it all. I think that also plays its part in why authors and screenwriters seem to think of them when they think of murder.
You got started in acting very young, but when did you actually decide it was going to be your occupation, not just a fun thing you did as a kid?
I went back and forth. I mean, all throughout Harry Potter, obviously you’re in this big movie, but it’s a big machine and you can quite easily at times — not always, but just at times — get lost in that machine. There are weeks and months on end where I was just set dressing; I was in the background. And you’re sitting there going, “I could be at school, so this is great, but I’m actually kind of bored.” I was like, “Is this really what I want to do?” And I toyed around with all kinds of things; I thought I might want to be a pilot. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a police officer.
But [acting] is a bit like golf, actually, in that you will say, “I’m not enjoying it,” because you played rubbish on the course. And then you have a scene when it’s all about you — or you hit a great shot — and you go, “This is the best feeling ever!” You’re always chasing that a little bit. So, coming out of Harry Potter, it was, “OK, well, I’ve had a taste of that with Neville in the last movie doing big, big moments and working with Ralph Fiennes and blowing up bridges. I would like more of that.”
Murder Before Evensong, streaming on Monday, October 13, on Acorn TV
MEMORABLE ROLES:
No doubt, Matthew Lewis enjoyed a truly magical start to his career, co-starring in the Harry Potter flicks as lovable loser turned unexpected hero Neville Longbottom. It was an eight-film adventure that took him all the way from the age of 11 into adulthood. Since then, Lewis has appeared in hit rom-coms like Me Before You and Baby Done, as well as guesting on TV series like All Creatures Great and Small.
CURRENT GIG:
The native of Leeds headlines this six-part mystery about young priest Daniel Clement, whose sleepy English village is rocked by a shocking death. And as we all know from series like Grantchester, the local holy man can be uniquely situated to unravel a small-town mystery.