Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Paul Blackthorne plays Harry Dresden on The Dresden Files, and I had a chance to speak to him about the show and a few other things.

The Dresden Files apparently has the highest female viewership of any sci-fi show on the air. Judging from the frenzy Paul elicits on the SciFi Channel bulletin boards, Paul’s electric hot good looks and charm are surely part of the reason. (They call it the “Paul Factor.”)

And yes, in person, he’s about as drop-dead gorgeous as a man could be, even with his “just rolled out of bed” look, complete with flip-flops. (I wish I as a woman would look that good upon waking up!) Just take a gander at the picture included with this interview – it was a single casual shot I took of Paul next to my surfboard. Even with his self-proclaimed “scruffy” hair – perfection!

Paul’s not just a pretty face, however. He’s an accomplished actor. While it might be natural to imagine Paul as a hero now that he’s on The Dresden Files, he is also well-known for his more insidious roles as a supervillain on 24 and a bad guy British officer in the critically-acclaimed Bollywood film Lagaan, for which he was nominated for several awards. His career has spanned independent films to TV guest appearances on shows such as ER and Monk.

In addition to being an actor, Paul, who is British, is a skilled photographer and has exhibited his photos in London.

As for his personal life, he’s not the kind of person to trumpet about it. But, since fans are curious about such things, it’s not a secret that he’s happily living with his long-time girlfriend. “She’s my girl,” he says proudly, and as well he should. I had a chance to meet her, and she is as naturally beautiful as you would expect, poised, smart and quite nice. So while you ladies may be a bit jealous, you can rest assured that he’s in very good hands.

If there’s anything we could fault Paul with, it’s that he’s not a big sci-fi fan. But I think we can forgive him for that.

With all that said, let’s hear what Paul has to say about himself, in his own words:

Q: Do you like sci-fi?

I’ve never been a particular fan of any one genre, only that which might appeal in any of those genres. I think when I look at my resume, it’s kind of all over the place, whether it’s a Hindi film or an indie film or an American television program or a British one or whatever or sci-fi. I’m not really hooked on any one particular idea. I don’t think many people out there are.

And when this (The Dresden Files) came up, the character very much appealed to me. I had conversations with people about the sci-fi element and how far that would be taken, but in essence, the nature of the character trying to reconcile two worlds, the magical one in which he lives and the real one in which he lives – it’d be a bit like those Venn diagrams with those circles crossing – he’s sort of stuck in the middle, trying to keep both sort of happy. And that’s what appealed to me, not so much the sci-fi element. But then again the sci-fi element wasn’t something that didn’t appeal to me.

Q. Do you prepare before playing a role?

Oh, I don’t put a single thought to it, I just turn up on the day and hope for the best (laughs)! Everybody’s got their different methods or non-methods, and I know it’d sound really boring if I was to start telling about my approach to acting, but I look into the backstory of the character…and all that stuff for sure. I like to get to know the character and the world in which he inhabits, whether that’s on the page or not on the page.

Q. How did you get into acting?

I did a play with a national youth music theater when I was 11, at the Edinburgh Festival at the Jeanetta Cochran Theatre at the West End. There was a couple of actors in that year. There was Toby Jones, who’s the guy who just did the second Infamous film, the Capote film that was called Infamous. Him, and Tom Hollander, you see him all over the place, he was in those plays as well, Jonny Lee Miller…well, he was in a later one. That was when I first did acting, it was this precocious musical…well, I was precocious.

Q. Do you sing?

Well, (back) then I could harumph my way around the stage in a jaunty, jovial fashion. I’m not so sure about now.

But then I kind of didn’t really know what I was doing for a long time. When I was living in New York for a while, I fell into a bit of acting there, and when I was back in London, fell into a bit more there, then decided I should learn something about it, or try to, and I’ve been going since then really.

Q. You did modeling?

Yeah, very unsuccessfully and many moons ago.

Q. Did you like it?

I didn’t really work that much to be honest.

Q. So you’ve done acting and done modeling here and there, what else have you done?

Well, I’ve done a lot of things to be honest. I’ve done a lot of different jobs, but…of course, the restaurant affair. That was a lot of fun, hard work. But it paid the bills for a while. And I did lots of other jobs, working on construction sites and God knows what, thinking, “I’m not really sure if I’m cut out for this.” But that was when I was younger, I was barely 17. I’d wash dishes.

Q. When you were growing up what did you want to be?

A train driver (joking). Um, I don’t know, I don’t know what I thought I wanted to be, maybe fly an airplane, something ridiculous. But it took a long time. I finally bumbled around to acting. I sort of wondered what on earth I was going to be doing. I just traveled a lot, really, I thought, “Well, I don’t know what I’m doing so I might as well go to interesting places not knowing what I’m doing,” do you know what I mean? And in that you end up picking up a few bits and pieces, learning a few things about yourself. Nothing terribly revelatory.

Q. How did The Dresden Files come up?

I was in London at the time and just got a call about this show, just like any other gig really, just went to the audition, you know, had a number of auditions and I got the part (laughs). Just went to auditions and got the part. Nothing really to say.

Q. What’s it like to play an American?

I don’t really consider it as an American, it’s just a character who happens to be American, to be honest. Whether the character is British, American, Italian or whatever, it’s something to do with the character, as opposed to thinking about it what that means to be that character’s nationality.

Q. How did you train for your American accent on The Dresden Files?

I have a dialect coach on the Dresden Files, Rae Ellen Bodie, who is a very fine dialect coach and a very fine person. She was very helpful. It helps to have someone polish it up a bit. Couldn’t do it without that.

Q. Do you think about the accent as you do it?

No, you try to forget about that. If you start thinking about that it won’t be very good. So, no, it’s part of the character. Then once you determine the nature of the accent and that decision’s been made, then sort of get on with it really. So one tries not to think about it as you’re doing it because it really won’t be watchable (laughs).

Q. In The Dresden Files, you are British, playing an American, and your co-star is an American playing a character with a British accent. How was that?

Terrence Mann, who plays Bob, is American playing British. So Rae Ellen, the dialect coach, she’d come up to me with the American notes and go up to him with the British notes, and we couldn’t be standing too close to each other or else we’d get ourselves in a right pickle. But yes, it was quite amusing that we swapped ourselves around for that.

Q. Do you ever worried you’ll be pigeonholed in the sci-fi genre?

If I really wanted to bore myself stupid I could worry about that, but, you know, a job that I felt I wanted to do at the time came up, and I’m glad about that, and I’ve enjoyed doing it. And as long as I felt good about doing the job in the first place, I can’t really think about what other people are going to think about it.

Q. Tell me about your experience on 24.

That was a treat, like being in a boy’s own adventure, and you’re working with someone like Kiefer Sutherland, who is right up there as good an actor as you’re ever going to work with. To work with someone of his caliber, and the producers of that show, their caliber, just everything, it’s just quality isn’t it? Just really good quality stuff, the writing… You sit there thinking, “Oh, gosh, this is fun,” and then all these F16 jets come up and blow up your helicopter, and you think “Ohh.” So that was a lot of fun.

Q. Beyond The Dresden Files, what do you see yourself doing?

I don’t know, I didn’t really know any of the last five years was going to happen, but it’s been good. I’ve got no idea what might be next, but you just have to keep on in some way, whether it’s television or film or whatever, British, Indian or American. If the character’s inspiring, if the script is, then you’re going to enjoy yourself, and if you’re enjoying yourself, then something half decent might occur. But you can’t really forecast what’s going to be next, it’s sort of a big old universe (laughs).

Q. If you were able to pick where you would go next, where might that be?

Well, I’ll go to Jack Nicholson, then I’ll do a film with Robert DeNiro. Brando’s dead so I can’t do a film with him…(laughs)…you know what, I don’t know, because if you try to plan things…I don’t know really, I don’t know.

When I think of some of the actors I’ve worked with, I feel very fortunate…Aamir Khan with the Bollywood film I did, and Kiefer Sutherland, and…I did that episode of Medium with Patricia Arquette. I remember doing a scene with her thinking “I’m not sure if it can get much better than this,” and she’s such a lovely lady as well. And you think, “Well, I must be blessed to be sitting in this room,” and if things like that continue to happen then you can’t really complain.

Q. Tell me about your photography.

I’ve just taken holiday snaps like the next person, really. There was a time in London, 1998-1999, I had a few slideshows around my house or something. A couple of people saw the photos and said, “You really should be doing something with these photographs.” It hadn’t really occurred to me, but I ended up having some exhibitions. They were just really travel snaps from around the world, and I was able to raise some money for Greenpeace and the British Red Cross, and had some great evenings…lots of good fun and selling some of these pictures, you know, and raising a bit of money for some causes here and there.

I did that in London. I’ve had a few of those, and then in the last five years since I’ve been in Los Angeles I haven’t really thought about having one. Because it takes up quite a lot of time and energy and it’s harder for me to forecast quite what’s going to be going on in the next three months, kind of the period of time you’d need to have one. But now with the advent of the digital Internet and cybernet and all that stuff (laughs) we’re going to try to get this on this website that I’m currently working on, and hopefully get it out there in that fashion.

Q. What do you like about photography?

When you’re acting you have to go into your head. When you’re taking a photograph I feel like I’m very much going out of my head. I feel like it has nothing much to do with my head when I’m taking a photograph of something else. And it’s nice to get out of your head so to speak.

Q. I heard you did a special exhibition to help the victims of an earthquake in India.

So I was in India in 2000 shooting a film called Lagaan. I spent four months out there. We were based in a little town called Bhuj in Gujarat, which is the state bordering Pakistan. Everyone goes to India and says “Oh it changed my life!” and you think, “Yeah yeah, whatever,” and then you go there and you come back and you say, “Oh my God, it changed my life!”

And it sort of does change your life when you go to India. It’s quite an extraordinary experience. And also I made a film whilst being there; it was even a stranger thing to be doing. Not just being in India, but being in India making a movie was really mindblowing. It was really peculiar and odd.

So the film came out and it was a very successful film. It was nominated for the best foreign language category for the Oscars in 2002, which is the reason why I ended up in Los Angeles in the first place, through that.

But a year after we finished filming, there was a huge earthquake, and the town in which we stayed was the epicenter. A lot of people lost their lives that helped us on the production, and some people were in the film, some of the extras. The place we stayed was a nine floor building and it was split in half and reduced to three floors. And Aamir Khan, being the incredibly fine person he is, as opposed to premiering this much-anticipated film in big fancy elaborate way, he decided the first people who should see the film should be the people of Bhuj.

So we trundled up to Bhuj, and in this broken down old theater, literally. The town had been decimated, so there was a lot of bricks and mortar lying about the place, But the town theater was just about standing, and they squeezed just about every member of the town in there and we’re all sitting there and he played the film there for the first time. And that was amazing. I remember the guy sitting next to me, “Oh, see him, he died, he died,” pointing to people on the screen. So that whole experience was quite extraordinary.

It’s a great film. I’m completely ridiculously over the top in it, outrageously a bit over the top. The film itself is a wonderful film. It’s good, old fashioned. Some guy came up to me, one of the Sony screeners, and said “You know, that’s like the movies they used to make in Hollywood.” And I remember thinking, “yeah.”

So that was Lagaan. I think it’s the most successful Indian film ever.

I was planning on having an exhibition called Bollywood Backpack, because I did the film and went traveling afterwards down south. So I had these wonderful pictures of India. I mean, you just point the camera anywhere and you get a good picture. So I came back, had this exhibition and was a bit troubled because this earthquake had occurred and thinking “is this in good taste?”

But I thought at least if we could get some of these pictures on the wall…because some of the people in the pictures I think may have died. So I had to think about that for a bit. But we raised money for the British Red Cross that had helped extensively in the area after the earthquake. So I thought, just to keep thinking about those people in a positive way, you know, raise some money, would be beneficial, so we did.

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If you are jonesin’ for more Paul, I am helping Paul out with the launch of his new official Paul Blackthorne website, which will include an online exhibition of his photography. You will be able to purchase prints of Paul’s photography and help benefit Paul’s favorite non-profit organizations at the same time. The site should be online soon, so stay tuned.

July 6th, 2007 | Category: Television | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL