Robert Lindsay (Citizen Smith, My Family, Spy, Sherwood Actor) On BBC Breakfast [26.08.2024]

now if you're looking for a gritty drama to get into the BBC One Hit Sherwood is back it's on our screens for its second series the show is set in a Nottingham mining Village that's plagued by gang violence and political unrest and we'll be speaking to one of its new cast members in just a moment but first his little teaser there is such a thing as a mood or a culture that is hard to see hard to Define but it can grip a place they were Gang Related then he was an execution blood F blood it's cold we're out we're nothing say about today so good about me and the gone it's on a knif l out there this could upset the balance I go down you go down it's a gathering storm and I'm worried about anyone who's at the center of it oh it looks really good doesn't it actor Robert Lindsay is with us good morning good morning robt so this is Series 2 and you're only in series 2 you wanted to be in series one oh my god did I want to be in series one I can't tell you um I hadn't seen it when it was shown um when I was invited to lunch by James Graham the writer um and offered me a role in the second series I binged watched the first one which was just it actually blew my mind and actually it hurt cuz I thought you know I'm from Nottingham and I went through that whole thing you know that was going on in Nottingham at the time so it was very personal to me uh unfortunately there wasn't a role in there and it had already been cast but now I'm in the second series and you it's a long long story attached to it but I was very motivated by the the the political implications of what was going on in Nottingham at the time and indeed the country during the minor strike in the 80s uh my father was a trade unionist and we I got very involved with the miners and I I had one incident when I was um I was rehearsing me and my girl in Leicester with Emma Thompson and I that was very near so I stayed with my parents and I took my mom and dad to uh for a pub lunch and because I'd done citizen Smith in the the 7 all the BLS came over and said you know kind have your autograph and sort of was great really good and then within seconds there was this huge fight between Fathers and Sons and I said to my dad what's this and he said it's beginning you know the the whole thing and my dad was always very suspicious of of certain forces that were happening which is why the second series is so powerful I think so how much did your own personal connection to it shape your approach to this well it's really difficult for me because I left Nottingham or rather Derby I I was born in between actually I was born in a place called Awash or ilon or as the locals call it illon which coins the phrase a up M do and um uh you know so I was 18 when I went to rder the Roy Academy of dramatic art and so that whole period I I kind of missed so it's it was only through my parents that I I was aware of what the shift the things that were going on um you know I mean I was going through enormous changes at the time um you know I mean when I went just before I went to rer I was working in a sewer for my local Foundry the Stanton and iron works so I was a sewage worker and um you know and I got into rer during that time and I remember telling my workmates um I've got into they were really fascinated and um they said well what what what does it mean and I said until I got to the items I needed which included two pairs of ballet tights ballet shorts ballet pumps and make certain items of makeup and a makeup box which was met by a deafening silence and my foreman uh big Mitch and never forget said well if all else fails you can be a beautician and so you can imagine when I came out of R in my first in my first pair of ballet tights and met this formidable lady called Madame fedra and i' never called anyone Madame you never did where I came from you know they were called Miss or m madame and she was a a former Russian Ballerina she was in her late 60s and uh very formidable and I remember she got the whole class to parade in there ballet tights ballet tights and uh she picked on me and she said no no no no daring come here you must walk from the bowels and I said the bowels Miss she said no no I am Madame oh I'm sorry Madame yeah yeah I'm the bows so I remember walking I clenched in my bowels so tight could hardly breathe at which point she pointed at my testicles and said no no no from the bowels so as well as changing my vowels I Chang my vowels so there we are was a big change I didn't think we'd get on to that at 6 minutes you know I rang the editor last night your researcher did a did a whole check on the word testicles and I said maybe the Prominent Point in my groin or anything she said stick to testicles it's easier um so as well as that of learning a bit of French um that's when when you learn to talk Posh isn't it as well I mean because that being at rer well it before then funny enough I'm when I was at Clarendon College in Nottingham um because I was training then to be a teacher I was going to go to teachers Training School drama college and um the whole thing was I mean I was really broad you know I mean it was sure up and go off on with you how you going on all right I mean I really was um so that wasn't really acceptable and I've realized as I've got older which has really shocked me that I thought it was for my training as an actor well it wasn't it was trying to elevate myself to fit in correct to be accepted in a more you know another Society I guess but you know you don't have to be born with a silver spoon to play one how much has that changed though do you feel now it's a slightly better environment for actors so say were doing that today you wouldn't have felt the need to do that no no no I I well I mean it hadn't then you've got actors in my period like Albert finy and Tom Courtney and Peter OT and Richard Harris who be stayed true to themselves you know but I think the decision I made was for many reasons um you know I think I was embarrassed about my accent um which is a shame in many ways and it was so lovely to return to Sherwood and be amongst actors using the accent except I play a character who doesn't did you have a word with James Graham about that uh yeah I tried to slip in my own accent now and again but uh yeah they came down hard on me um in fact there was a couple of ilk estonians accents I put in that have been C really um longevity in a career like yours is fascinating because you have to sort of reinvent yourself in different ways because people will know you what from the 70s with citizen Smith They'll know you from you know as Ben Harper in my family they'll know you from the West End stage um you've also got your own show talking about do you find it difficult talking about yourself being myself yeah I mean I finding this difficult no I really do I always or anything like that I always find if I'm being someone or I'm promoting something then I can be the character that I've played I I know that sounds awfully pretentious but I guess actors are we're very odd people really um it's a very odd profession but do you find you can hide behind the character yeah so actually it's very rare that you talk about you well the nice thing is I'm not doing a show on my I mean first of all the show is um subtitled an ego is landed so we know my yeah but but there's lots of clips of a friend of mine at Pinewood um has edited 52 years of things I've done on film TV and stage and it's it's extraord I just forget how much I've done um very varied and and um you know we pieced it all together so I'm I'm walking on with all my mates as it were that's how I think I'm not on my own and what about what's next do you think you're going to look for something where you can be a bit more true to your accent in your next role I would like to but I you know I think I am what I am now um you know um but there's been an awful lot about the class thing that certainly because of Sherwood and and what James Graham said at the mtag lecture recently about class you know class is something that you are born with you know you can't change your class it doesn't matter how rich you become how successful you become you are what you are when you were born and you want and then why I admire writers like John Sullivan who wrote citizen Smith Who I Really admired Alan bdale who I worked with on gbh and indeed James Graham that they're brilliant writers because they write from the truth from who they are and where they were born and they stay very true to themselves and that's what makes the writing so powerful yeah well thank you Robert for coming in it's been really good to that's it that's it see wasn't so difficult or painful after all hopefully kind of quickly to promo feain who is my audience with is the producer F ne. co.uk and it gives you all the information of my touring dates later this year we've got another promo another promo of you now as well because we're just going to say you can watch Sherwood on BBC 1 tonight at 9:00 or on the I player