What was the biggest challenge in playing the role -
The whole walk on one leg thing. That was tricky. Because as you know if you have one leg now you get two crutches and they both have handles, so you can get around. For this I walked around on one leg but I got one stick that went under my arm and it had no handle, so there was nothing to put your weight on. Getting that right was really hard. I had to train with movement people, and I spent a lot of time going up and down Steve Barron's [director] stairs in his flat. We set up an assault course in there for me to hop round and negotiate. I was really trying very hard to get it right, in fact initially I ended up putting too much energy into it: I had to work with a very good osteopath to get my back in line again. But by the time filming started I could go forwards, go backwards and even put in a burst of speed on the stick if required.
Tell us about the shaved head...
I'd been trying to shave my head and do a role looking like that for some time. Why? I just wondered what it would look like. They came to me with this mock up of a shaven-headed me, and asked, 'Would you shave your head?' I went, 'Yeah'. You don't know until you shave your head whether your skull 'works', is a sort of pleasing shape. I'm happy to say that my skull is fantastic. I will put that on my CV.
Why did you want this role?
I always wanted to act before I did comedy – I was seven when I first wanted to act. Obviously then the whole comedy thing took over but for seventeen years now I've been doing dramatic roles with a dramatic
agent in London and we've always tried to look for drama separate to the comedy: the more extremes I can do the more I pull away from how I'm known on stage. So with something like this it's, 'Yeah, it's very different, let's go for it.' I mean it scares me a little bit, it's always difficult but the more you put yourself up for these kind of roles the more it differentiates you from... my other day job.
How do you see Silver?
Well he's conflicted. He's always changing sides and there's a few people in my life I know who are like that. And also there's Churchill. Churchill is the one person who changed sides three times. And people
don't remember this these days. But he was Conservative, then he was a Liberal, then he was Conservative. You don't trust someone who's changed sides once. He changed sides twice and then we made him Prime Minister because he was the right person for the job. So for Silver I wanted to have some of that. Plus, like Churchill, John Silver will not stop. He is so determined to get that treasure. This guy is going to go back to this island and get what we worked out was something like three hundred million of today's money. That's a hell of a lot of money that you would do anything to get.
He sets himself a goal and then just can't let it go. Is that something that you saw in yourself as well?
Yeah. Yeah. That's a thing that I feel I can bring to any role - my determination. In Long John's case it's a fixation, but I'm the same. Once I decide I want to do something I tend to keep at it until it's done.
What sort of a person is Silver?
I like where we've taken it with our story. He's a bit like those guys, you know, who when I was growing up would say, 'I love you' to any girlfriend. And then they'd say, 'Well I meant it at that particular moment.' I think this is Silver's thing. He means what he says in that moment he says it, but then ten minutes later he could mean something totally different. He will manipulate - he will manipulate too much for his own good so no one can actually trust him. But crucially he's always likeable - there's got to be something respectable in there.
What's the crux of his relationship with Jim?
There's nothing actually in the book, but with us there's this relationship that develops. It's almost difficult to grab hold of what it is that makes it develop. But I think between Toby and I we've just got this thing – we both speak French bizarrely, so we talked a lot like that. I don't know, just, you look for things in the scenes and something develops between us - is it a father and son type of relationship? Is it a brotherly, or a buddy thing? It is quite quicksilver, their relationship. The thing is John Silver is also prepared to kill Jim. It is a possibility that dissipates and then it comes back later in the piece. And then there are times he really does like or at least admire him. By the end it feels like they've gone through and entire
family history. All in this one adventure.
