One of the charms of having followed a profession for many years is to be able to look back and see where the seeds of future events were sown, albeit seemingly unimportant at the time.
This particular retrospection begins in 1966 with a film titled Poor Cow, the story of a woman who continually makes bad choices, falling for a string of criminals, including Dave Fuller, played by myself.
The poor cow in question was actress Carol White and the director, Ken Loach, known for his television successes, was making his debut feature.
***
Loach liked to fill his productions with actual characters, which was how Carol and I came to work with John Bindon, a real life tealeaf cast to play a tealeaf (thief)—and Carol’s common law husband—in the piece. No problem for yours truly, for whilst Bindon had a reputation as a notorious hard case, he was a complete gentleman on set, comical too, and also notorious for his prodigious appendage—what Marlon Brando would have termed his “noble tool.” In fact, he had a trick that he was fond of performing in public, which involved flashing this massive wherewithal. He would unzip his Strides, whip it out, and clasping the trunk with both hands, twirl the uncut policeman’s helmet a few times before safely returning it to his ample trousers and zipping up. I bore witness to this one afternoon while strolling along with him on Kings Road in Chelsea. Walking toward us was the famed reformist peer Lord Longford. Bindon spotted him, nudged me, and in the blink of an eye completed his party trick. So fast and obviously so well rehearsed that I had trouble believing what I had just seen, yet the expression on the great and good’s face conveyed the disoriented bewilderment of someone whose gin and tonic had been laced with LSD.
I heard at a later date that Bindon had been a guest on the Caribbean island of Mustique, along with the great fashion photographer Richard Avedon, who persuaded him to air his gyration for fellow vacationer Princess Margaret and her entourage as she came down from her suite to join the group for cocktails. Reputedly, Avedon offered to snap the event. Bindon couldn’t resist.
“A blinder,” the princess concluded.
“I’ve seen bigger in Malaya,” the lady-in-waiting added.
Later still, Bindon stood trial for the murder of an equally fearsome hard case, Johnny Dark.
In his testimony, John recounted the details of the knifing for the court. The curious judge interjected, “Are you saying, Mr. Bindon, you actually intended to knife Mr. Dark to death?”
“That’s right.”
“But why on earth, man?”
“Well. He was actually trying to kill me at the time, Your Honor.”
He received an in-self-defence verdict.
You can see why it wasn’t hard to stay in character with the likes of Bindon on the set.
The other reality check was the fact that Ken Loach improvised the whole film. I am certain he knew precisely what he was doing, but we didn’t have a script. He always shot scenes between Carol and me using two cameras simultaneously. This proved to be a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, but it certainly didn’t feel like it on the first day. Method acting it wasn’t. No “emotional memory” appropriate here.
I had moved on from the method of trying to relive emotional moments, tethered as they were in the past, but hadn’t actually discovered any modus operandi with a more dynamic slant. Suddenly without preparation or the constraints of learned dialogue, and not knowing what Carol would say or do between “action” and “cut,” it became a discipline of “empty head” on “action.” Causing me to realize that performance is as spontaneous as speaking is in real life. With the exception of politicians, that is. All that is required is the firm belief that whatever arises from the stillness that underlies all motion would be organically connected to the moment.
***
Cut to 1998, Kauai, the Hawaiian island. On holiday in a basic beach hotel whose rooms have no telephones. A message is left at reception to ring Steven Soderbergh at an 818 number in California. I collect a handful of quarters and find my way to a public open-air phone on the beach. Dial the number, and in a minute am connected to the young maestro whose first film, Sex, Lies and Videotape, made such a big impression on the business—and me. Would I be interested in playing in a gangster movie entitled The Limey? He also mentioned the possibility of using footage from an earlier film I had appeared in, Poor Cow, as a kind of back-story.
To be frank, I was lost for words and didn’t respond.
“So, what d’you think?” he asked, after a long pause.
“Yes!!”
“Oh, great.” He sounded relieved.
It is my turn to ask a question.
“Tell me, Steven. Was there ever any doubt?”
“Oh, sure. It’s not many leading men who relish being up there with their thirty years younger selves.”
So it began.
***
My first and only meeting with Steven, prior to signing, took place in the garden of the Chateau Marmont, in Los Angeles. He told me that when you looked at most people, you could imagine cogs turning in their heads. What he wanted to feel from Wilson, my character, was the presence of a bigger cog behind the others, moving in increments, but powering their motion.
Later, after I’d committed, he rang me. Could I work out what Wilson would wear? He didn’t know much of English fashion.
Both of these seeming flecks of direction created a lot of reverberation for me. In fact, they were all the tips I needed.
This seemingly casual request heartened me a great deal. His faith in my ability and his modesty, which always impresses me—one of the most charming features in my opinion, as its nature is to veil itself.
The main thrust of my vitality came with the realization that Soderbergh and co-writer Lem Dobbs—“Holy cow—Poor Cow—check it out!” was the memo he’d sent Steven after re-discovering the old film—had constructed the Limey with me in mind; I was determined to plumb the depths and scale the heights to justify their faith. Wilson would speak as my own father had. Wilson’s body would tilt forward like the author Ian Fleming, whose bearing struck me as leaning into life. It was a veritable “Life of Riley” to have a character I’d given birth to thirty years previous to tether my present day Limey to, and an absolute luxury to work with a great director at a time in my life when I knew enough to appreciate one. I’ve heard it said that Soderbergh doesn’t consider himself a storyteller, more of a technician fascinated by the intricacies of film itself.
You could have fooled me.
I prepared in the crisp fresh air of Vancouver, memorizing the script until the words became second nature, while hardening up at the wonderful Diane Miller’s Pilates studio, using the form of exercise developed by boxer-gymnast Joe Pilates nearly a hundred years ago. Based on muscular control as well as development, Pilates promotes a strong, functional body. There are some things you just can’t act. And no amount of period whistle (a Sixties suit) would convey a prison tough body if there wasn’t one underneath. Or the “big cog” that Soderbergh suggested far behind the eyes.
Steven used his handheld lightweight Arriflex, marking the very first time in a lengthy career that my gal (the camera) and the director were not two. Dialogue preparation combined with the spontaneity of the director resulted in the same impromptu spur-of-the-moment feel achieved on the Poor Cow shoot, and also bears witness to Steven’s highly developed intuition in not only his sparing use of the old footage, but featuring it in black and white, a stark and melancholic contrast to the Limey of his creation.
***
Later, at a film festival in Rotterdam, Holland, I do a Q and A on stage following a screening. A local babe asks me, “Where’s the guy who played the young Wilson?”
Appreciating her inferred wantonness and the amazing legs a lot of Dutch girls have, I catch myself feeling nostalgic for my own 25-year-old physique. With a sigh I respond, “He had his 15 minutes of fame. I haven’t heard from him lately.”