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Timothy Spall tries it all in All or Nothing.
BY DYLAN BEHAN.
Prolific British director Mike Leigh must like actor Timothy Spall. All or Nothing is their fifth collaboration - and continues the relentless and honest explorations of the emotional conditions of the working class.
"Some critics have found it unrelentingly honest about the people it's portraying because it doesn't go anywhere where these characters wouldn't go naturally," says Spall. "But people who have got it, understood also it has to be as tough as it is because without that you won't understand what he does emotionally with the film... For want of a better word, without the bleakness, you're not going to get the payoff."
Hailing back to Leigh's earlier darker work, and much removed from his last film about musical duo Gilbert and Sullivan (Topsy Turvy), Spall describes the film as being about "people struggling to come to terms with love, living in conditions where they don't have much else to sustain them."
An accomplished actor with an OBE attached to his name, Spall has built a distinguished career playing countless down to earth, likeable blokes on both sides of the fence - from his work with Leigh (Secrets and Lies), to Brannagh's Hamlet to the upcoming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - and huge amount of TV work inbetween.
Right now, he's on a break from shooting the Tom Cruise action film The Last Samurai in New Zealand. "They're shooting the macho stuff which I'm not involved in, so that's afforded me the chance to come and talk about All or Nothing," Spall, a bulky everyman jokes.
The most interesting aspect of All or Nothing, like any of Leigh's work, is his unusual development and rehearsal process. Spall literally walked into the first day of "readings" without a script, knowing nothing about the project, and spent the next five months creating his character - and from there, with Leigh, came the story.
"It's a preparation really. It's a prolonged and very detailed creation. Individually, and then a group of characters that didn't exist in the first place become their own entities - and then are put in connection with each other through Mike's overseeing. He's the Machina that creates the chemistry - but you never discuss where it's going. It's always done totally subjectively and obviously he's building up his idea of where the characters are going through rehearsal."
The end product has been well received by audiences, notes Spall, and surprisingly well at Cannes.
"The great thing when we were in Cannes, apart from all of the schmoozing and bollocks and all that - (is) to sit in that place full of sophisticated film going people, a hell of a lot of Parisian chic people, (and) to hear those Prada handbags clipping open with the tissues coming out... it's fantastic. And you know you're in an area where you're cutting right across all sorts of barriers. I think it's rare for any film to have that kind of bravery without alienating the UB-1's or whatever kind of an audience they're aiming at. It's fiercely mature film making and it's an honour to be a part of it."
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In All of Nothing, Spall plays Phil, a middle aged cab driver, husband and father of two living in a circle of poverty in a South London council housing estate. With little escape, Leigh sends the large cast of characters on a brutally honest emotional journey not much removed from their ordinary lives, but still powerful nonetheless.