Gay stories on film and television should encompass an entire spectrum of experiences, according to Elsinore star and producer Andrew Scott, speaking in his Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival today.
“I welcome things like Heartstopper, Heated Rivalry and Red, White & Royal Blue, and all those things that are joyful,” said Scott, in response to a question about his response to some criticism of Andrew Haigh’s 2023 film All Of Us Strangers, in which he starred, for indulging in the pain of gay people.
“The fact that there’s lots of different types of gay drama is extraordinary.
“[The pigeon-holing] troubles me a bit. I think it speaks about people who don’t want to go back to a time when you’re talking about the Aids crisis, or when it was incredibly difficult for gay people, and that sometimes comes from a place of shame,” said Scott.
“There’s something troubling for me, to say ‘I don’t want to see something that was a difficult time’. The shame does not lie with the gay people. The shame lies with the governments who ignored the Aids crisis, stigma and innate prejudice that was in society. That’s someone else’s shame.”
View this post on Instagram
Scott was speaking the day after the festival opened with the European premiere of Simon Stone’s Elsinore, in which the actor plays Ian Charleson, who took on the role of his career as Hamlet at London’s National Theatre in 1989 while dying from Aids. Focus Features will begin its US rollout from November 20; while Studiocanal will release the film in the UK and Ireland on January 29, 2027.
It is Scott’s first feature film producing credit, alongside Gabrielle Tana and Carolyn Marks Blackwood for Magnolia Mae Films, Pete Shilaimon and Mickey Liddell for LD Entertainment, and Andrea Occhipinti and Stefano Massenzi for Lucky Red. Scott said he is “definitely” looking to take on more producing when the right scripts come along.
“I produced or co-created in the theatre a lot,” said Scott, who himself played Hamlet on stage for 150 performances in 2017. “It’s about confidence. I have been around a while, and so there are things where you go, ‘those things are overlooked’. I have a good work ethic, and sometimes it’s just about being vigilant. In this case, it was the tone and knowing Stephen [Beresford, writer]’s voice as I do, and knowing mine, and understanding acting, and what it might have been like for a gay actor in that time. So I thought this one is the thing. It’s been such a learning process to do it; if there’s another [suitable] story, I absolutely would like to do it.”
Playful
Despite the painful themes of the film, Scott said playfulness remained an important part of his preparation, a style he shares with co-star Olivia Colman.
“Your duty is to play a part, so you should be in a playful mood,” said Scott of acting. “I have total admiration for method acting and whatever gets you through the night. The results can be extraordinary. But for me, the idea is to be alive to whatever may happen. Something could happen in this room that changes the atmosphere immediately. That’s the way the world works, so you have to be alive to that.
“If somebody is doing something pre-prepared, you lose that moment, and those are the moments that audiences recognise as truth. Laughing, comedy and sense of humour are so exclusive to human beings. If you don’t have that in acting, it’s simply not representative of the way we are.”
Scott admitted that he is living most intensely when he is acting, although that is not something of which he is keen. “I’m reluctant to say that might be true, but I think it could be,” said the actor. “I’ve always felt acting is an honourable thing to do. What I have to be careful of, I recognise as I get older, it has made me physically ill. I can mess myself up in different ways.
“You may have heard of Doctor Theatre, which is when you have a terrible cold, you’re pissed off that you’ve got to do this fucking play. Everybody’s in a beer garden in the middle of summer, and you’re going to go shout in the dark. Then you go in, and you feel fine, and you’re taken over by the audience’s imagination. Then you come off, and feel horrendous again!”
No comments yet