May I Have Your Attention, Please? by Corden James

Author:Corden, James [Corden, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2011-09-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT:

‘Club Tropicana’ by Wham!

BEST FILM TO WATCH ALONGSIDE:

A Cock and Bull Story

BEST ENJOYED WITH:

baked Alaska

I‘D HAD A leading role. In a film. My name was on the posters alongside those of Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville and Alison Garland, and it all looked very promising. When they showed the film at Cannes, it received a five-minute standing ovation that sent shivers down my spine. I remember Sting coming up to me afterwards and telling me he thought my performance had been amazing. I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked I don’t even think I said thank you; I just stood there open-mouthed. I remember telling myself that Sting wouldn’t think I’d been rude – he was probably used to that reaction from people by now.

Critically, the film polarised opinion. There was nothing lukewarm about anyone’s reaction: they either loved or hated it. But that’s often how it is with Mike’s films and I’d wanted to be part of it for the experience, not for where the film might take me.

He’s such a phenomenal director that everyone who works with him yearns for another opportunity. There are a chosen few, I suppose, actors who get invited back: Alison Steadman, Timothy Spall, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville, people like that. I’ve got a feeling that All or Nothing might’ve been my one and only shot, though. The way my career has gone since, I’m not sure I’m what Mike’s looking for.

Mike doesn’t want people who pussyfoot around him and I pussyfooted around him a lot. He doesn’t want people who laugh at his jokes all the time – I definitely laughed at his jokes all the time. He wants actors who challenge him and I don’t know that I did that. I’m being hard on myself, maybe, but coming away from a shoot like that, you’re always going to ask yourself the tough questions.

Sometimes I wonder if I might’ve done better if I’d gone the traditional route and spent some time at drama school. The thing about training properly is that it gives you confidence, the kind you just can’t get from anywhere else. Maybe I’d become a better actor if I took a year off and went to RADA or LAMDA or somewhere, though there’s always the chance I’d end up in a class full of people desperate to be in a Mike Leigh film. And that would be weird for everyone.

After the film released, nothing happened for a few weeks. I would pick up a magazine and read an article about the latest young acting sensation – the hot one to watch, you know. Generally, it would be someone I’d never heard of … and still haven’t, come to think of it. That’s the trouble with being ‘hot’ – what happens if you don’t catch fire? So I definitely wasn’t on any hot lists but, on the whole, I got good reviews for my part in All or Nothing.

A month or so after it came out, I went for an audition for a TV film called Cruise of the Gods.

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