Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd.IOAN GRUFFUDD TAKES A FANTASTIC JOURNEY
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the July 2005 issue of Venice Magazine.
Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced YO-an GRIFF-ith) was born in Cardiff, Wales October 6, 1973, the firstborn of three children to school teachers. At 18 he enrolled at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and upon graduation, began working almost immediately in the United Kingdom. It was his title role in the Emmy Award-winning miniseries, Horatio Hornblower, that earned him international acclaim with both fans and critics, on both sides of the pond.
Not long after graduating RADA, Ioan landed a supporting role in James Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic (1997), and has also appeared in such diverse titles as Wilde (1997), Solomon and Gaenor (1999), 102 Dalmatians (2000), Blackhawk Down (2001), and most recently in Antoine Fuqua’s revisionist take on King Arthur (2004), in which Ioan made many a fair maiden’s heart a-flutter with his brooking turn as Sir Lancelot.
Ioan’s latest big screen venture is sure to make him a household name, playing the leader of Marvel Comics legendary dysfunctional crime fighters, The Fantastic Four. Ioan plays a youthful variation of F4 leader Dr. Reed Richards, who is a lethal combination of dizzying intellect and physical action. Directed by Tim Story, the 20th Century Fox release hits screens July 8, and also stars Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, and Chris Evans.
Ioan Gruffudd sat down with us recently in a local Italian bistro for some good pasta and good conversation. Here’s what transpired:
One thing I thought was interesting when they cast you as Dr. Fantastic was that they decided to go so young. In the comic, Reed Richards was definitely middle-aged, with these gray sideburns, so I always pictured someone like Kevin Kline playing the part.
Ioan Gruffudd: Yes, yes. I agree. I think with the hope of making it a franchise for the next ten years, they decided to make us younger in the beginning. If that’s the case, it would be a real luxury, wouldn’t it? (laughs)
What’s your take on Reed Richards?
He’s the biggest and best scientific brain ever, I suppose. It’s nice to play a very intelligent, thoughtful man. I’ve been lucky in that respect to have been cast as that type several times now. What I like about his ark is that he is sort of the dork, the guy who lives in his head, lives in his work, so much so that he doesn’t really notice that gorgeous, amazing Sue Storm is madly in love with him and he should be with her. Especially in that blue, lycra suit Jessica wears, she just looks sensational! (laughs)
When I saw pictures of her, I kept thinking of Diana Rigg as Mrs. Peel in The Avengers. I think I had my very first impure thoughts about her when I was a kid.
Me too! (laughs) I was very impressed with Jessica. I didn’t really know her prior to this, and I think she’s always been sort of typecast as the sort of blonde, kick-ass girl. But in reality, she’s incredibly maternal, in addition to being very beautiful. I think her talent will really be evident in this film. Actually, the backstory of the whole film is quite interesting, with Dr. Doom being Reed’s rival going back to college, and both sort of vying for Sue’s affections. But overall, the movie is a very entertaining, fun piece. It’s a fantasy, after all, and we’re not going for gritty realism. It’s a really wonderful “popcorn movie.” I think it’s something parents will be happy to take the kids to see.
I was very happy when I saw Michael Chiklis was cast as The Thing. He’s always struck me as an old school actor of the Lee Marvin mold.
Yeah, he’s just brilliant in it. From the moment the accident happens to him, he really just breaks your heart, sort of like The Elephant Man: you see the torture, the pain, the anxiety, the humor, and just when you think he’s lost all hope, he comes round to save the day again. I give the producers a lot of credit for casting great actors, like Michael, in these roles. It just gives you a three dimensional character for free, without even having to coax a performance out of them.
Chris Evans, who plays The Human Torch, I’ve only seen in Cellular prior to this. What was he like?
I think Chris is the best thing in it, really. He’s terrific and really made the part his own. Most of the one-liners he improvised, and they kept virtually all of them in. He’s a sort of Tom Cruise in Top Gun sort of character in this.
Prior to this, I was very impressed with your work in Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur. The Director’s Cut of that film is such an impressive piece of work, and a testament to the fact that a director’s vision should be left alone by the suits who sign the checks.
I was so impressed by Antoine. He really wanted to make a tough, R-rated movie, and suddenly they announced that they wanted it to be an audience-friendly PG-13 film. And you could just see how that devastated him, and it’s just like he was crumbling all summer long. But he stuck it out like a real professional and as you said, his cut of the film that’s on DVD now is a testament to his vision, and all the critics, many of whom hated the theatrical version, have responded just as you have to it—it’s a brilliant piece of work.
You worked with an amazing cast on that.
Oh God, it was amazing! Clive Owen was remarkable to work with. If Pierce Brosnan doesn’t come back as Bond, Clive would be my first choice as 007. He’s just got that brooding intensity that Bond needs. Clive has that air of danger about him, like Connery had, but can also be incredibly charming.
Tell us about your take on Lancelot.
It was a real challenge for me to play someone who was a hard, brooding killer, a mercenary basically. We were all sort of going about the set being hard men, brooding and so forth, and that carried over onto the screen. When they tried to cut that feeling down to a PG-13, it just didn’t work. But I loved playing Lancelot and working with actors like Clive and Ray Winstone, it just raises your game, just looking into their eyes brings your performance up. Also, Antoine was on my back all summer: “C’mon Ioan, you’re a fuckin’ knight! You’re a badass!” (laughs) So that helped, as well.
Have you ever seen Ray’s earlier work, like Scum (1980) and Quadrophenia (1979)?
Of course. I love those films, but I think my favorite film of his is Nil By Mouth (1997). I’m a huge fan of Gary Oldman (who directed) and I’ve even got a signed 10 x 8 photo of Gary at home that his sister, Laila Morse, got for me. She’s an actress, and we worked together in a BBC production of Great Expectations. She played a maid, and looks nothing like him, so I had no idea who she was initially. Gary’s always been one of my heroes, he’s just brilliant, so that picture means a lot to me.
Let’s talk about your background.
I was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, so I’m a city boy, really. My grandfather was a miner in West Wales. My parents are both teachers. My father was deputy principal at my high school, actually.
Oh, that must’ve been fun for you.
(laughs) The fact of the matter is that he’s such a lovely, likable, revered man that all the kids loved him, and that helped me enormously. Nobody wanted to be told off by him or get caught doing something naughty by him. He was a tough disciplinarian, so I benefited from that.
When did you know you were an actor?
When I did my first ever job as a child actor at the age of eleven, on this Welsh soap opera called Pobol y Cwn (People of the Valley) that I did for about seven or eight years. From then on, I was bitten.
There’s a rich tradition of great actors that have come from Wales, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins among them. Do you think there’s something inherent in the culture that fosters that kind of creativity?
During that era there was a lot of hardship and poverty and tough lives. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true. The whole of south Wales was the biggest mining community in the world, and these people were born out of that. Then there’s the religious element: the chapel-going, God-fearing people. Then there’s the musicality of it, when you sing in chapel or down in the mines. So I think it’s all born from that. My upbringing though, when I describe it, is that I never had a want. We weren’t rich, but my parents have lived their whole lives in the red, so they could give their children the lives and opportunities that we have now. I never wanted for anything material, we never went on holidays abroad, but we had unlimited supplies of love and encouragement from our parents. I was given everything a child would need to enter this world with confidence, and I think that’s where my confidence comes from for acting. It’s sort of the opposite of a lot of actors’ stories, who had very hard-luck backgrounds.
What was your time at RADA like?
Absolutely the toughest period of my life. While I did learn a great deal there, I felt a lot of the instruction was a bit destructive: “You’re not doing it right.” “You’ve got bad habits.” “This isn’t how you approach acting.” And I remember thinking, where’s the instinct? They’re ramming this method into us. So I almost lost all hope for acting and nearly left into the second year, but my father said “Look, just finish the course, then you can decide you don’t want to act.” It wasn’t until I did a play toward the end of the third year, that I met this director who just brought the confidence back to me. So I’ll be eternally grateful for my father’s wise words to stick it out. But prior to that, I’d get up every morning, eat breakfast, and immediately throw it all up because I’d be so nervous about working with whatever tyrannical director they were throwing at us that day. But to be fair, I also had a hard time I think because I had no real life experience to draw from at that point. Playing a guy whose girlfriend or wife had just died and was pregnant with his kid, or something, at that point, I’d never had a girlfriend, and never even had sex! (laughs) It was a very strange thing, having to draw everything from pure imagination. But all that training has now filtered through into the work I do now, so I’m glad I went. Not a happy time, but I’d not be here now if I hadn’t had that training.
How was it working on Titanic?
What can I say, I mean, I was on it for five months, for what was basically a small, supporting role, and I was just in heaven. Here I was, a young actor, 21 years-old, had only done one feature previously which I’d just finished (Wilde, 1998), and I fly down to San Diego, to be driven down to Mexico, to work on Titanic. Again, I went in with open arms and couldn’t believe my luck. We all knew when we were shooting that it was going to be something extraordinary. Cameron, all the stories that you heard, they’re all true. He’s just an obsessive character, a real perfectionist and strict task master. Some days you’d be crying in the makeup chair, not because of things he’d said, but just the atmosphere was so intense. People were just exhausted, drinking, smoking, partying through the night just to get through it. It felt like real old school Hollywood, like a shoot out of the Easy Riders and Raging Bulls era. We all bonded, cast and crew, very intensely. I will say, the catering was absolutely tremendous, which is what got us all through it, I think. Somebody was very smart in making sure the food was good! (laughs)
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