The wait is finally over, in just a few weeks’ time Gavin and Stacey fans will discover how the story ends, we caught up with Mathew Horne to discuss the show, and his latest theatre role
Mathew wears: classic white t-shirt by Sunspel; brushed wool jacquard-knit cardigan by Mr P. at MR PORTER; and bandana by Kapital
I’ve been doing this job long enough to know that Mathew Horne won’t be able to tell me anything about the Gavin and Stacey finale, but it doesn’t stop me hoping that he might let something slip. More fool me… “I’m embargoed,” he confirms with a wry laugh, “but I think you knew that!” For fans, this Christmas Day special has been a long time coming, so the little crumb of information he does offer is reassuring. “I have lots of different favourite Gavin and Stacey moments, but they all happened in the five weeks we were shooting the finale,” he reveals. “Suffice to say that this episode, for me, is really a culmination of 17 years of character and story, and so every single moment is so meaningful.”
And the actual experience of shooting it was evidently as meaningful as the content. “It was exhilarating and full of joy and happiness, because we were all back together, and over the last 17 years, we’ve created not only an on-screen family, but an off-screen one,” Mathew explains. “When you’re working away from home, inevitably you’re working with these people in the day, but also any spare time that you have in the evenings and weekends is spent with those people as well. I think that really comes across on the show. I think there’s some real truth and authenticity about our relationships with each other. There’s so much history between us all that it was just wonderful to get back and reminisce and sort of indulge in the nostalgia of it all.”
But that joy was tinged with another emotion. “Nostalgia, obviously inevitably, brings up feelings – quite visceral emotions,” Mathew admits. “There’s the really exciting, happy, exhilarating side, the other side of it is it’s deeply emotional as well. Because of the history, and because you know it is coming to a close, and it will not happen again. It’s imbued with a bittersweetness, I suppose. I’m loath to use that word in some ways, but it does sort of describe it. There’s no bitterness involved at all. It’s all very sweet, it’s just emotionally charged.”
Mathew wears: t-shirt by Loewe; and blazer and trousers by The Frankie Shop
The show ending in this way is actually quite rare, Mathew believes: “You’re always at the behest of whatever channel you’re being broadcast on, and somebody in an office, a commissioner or editor, will say: ‘We don’t want any more of that’. And so, it finishes, before you’ve even worked out how to finish the story yourself. Gavin and Stacey is being finalised on James Corden and Ruth Jones’ terms, which is really a rarity in the industry. That’s really nice, to be able to finish it in the way that they want and that is appropriate for the characters and the story.”
It is incredible to think that we were first introduced to Gavin Shipman and Stacey West 17 years ago, but of course, it has been a part of the team’s lives for much longer. “They started writing it in 2005. I auditioned for it in 2006… It’s crazy – it’s a long time, it’s a long time, and it is a huge part – it’s the majority – of my working career. It’s no longer the majority of my life, but it is the majority of my working life” Mathew explains, with a laugh. “That is reflected in what I am known for today and will continue to be known for. You know, this is going to be on my epitaph! And that’s really extraordinary as an actor, to have a piece of work under your belt, and on your CV, that will live long in many people’s memories, and that is so meaningful to so many people. You know, a guy just this morning stopped me for a selfie, because his teenage girls have just started watching the show. They were born after series two was released… It’s a real honour to be part of it, and I feel so lucky.”
With such big feelings involved, the comedown from wrapping the show could have been unbearable, but Mathew feels lucky to have moved straight onto another project. He’s joining Hollywood legend Sigourney Weaver and the Jamie Lloyd Company for a limited run of The Tempest at Theatre Royal Drury Lane this month, and started rehearsing in October, almost immediately after filming for Gavin and Stacey finished. “It’s just great being back in the rehearsal room, and so quickly onto another job,” he says. “After filming quite intensely in an emotionally charged environment on a TV show, it’s great to be back doing something in a different medium, and back in a rehearsal room, and on my feet and pretending to be fire and earth and water and air and things like that!”
“Suffice to say that this EPISODE, for me, is really a culmination of 17 YEARS of CHARACTER and STORY, and so every single moment is so MEANINGFUL”
Perhaps surprisingly, this is Mathew’s first professional Shakespeare. “I haven’t done any Shakespeare since I was 18, so it’s really exciting,” he reveals. “I’ve got lots of people around me who have done lots of Shakespeare, so I feel very safe, and I feel very safe with Jamie – he is a superb director. I did a play with him 11 or 12 years ago now, called The Pride, at Trafalgar Studios, and yeah, it’s great to be back working with him now.” Having started his career in comedy, performing on stage feels very natural to Mathew. “I’ve always tried to keep my hand in with theatre, to try and do a play a year. The large proportion of my career is in comedy, being on stage is what I’ve always done, and it is where I kind of began. I adore working on stage, I absolutely adore it, and I’m really proud of my theatre career – long may it continue…” he says.
The production is currently due to run until the beginning of February: I wonder how Mathew finds it doing the same thing night after night. “It’s not really the same thing,” he explains. “You know, the lines are the same, but everything else is different. The costumes might be the same, but they are still different to yesterday because it’s a new day. You know, the members of the audience, if they are there, are different. And the actors on stage, you don’t know what kind of day they have had – they might not be feeling good, they may be feeling great. There are almost infinite variables, so it doesn’t really feel as repetitious as one might think. The theatre is really just like a framework from which to hang your piece of art. That’s how I like to look at it, because I think otherwise it could become incredibly tedious.”
Does that inconsistency ever make him nervous? “You have to have a certain amount of courage, because you don’t know what’s going to happen, nobody knows what’s going to happen,” he agrees. “But in the theatre the response is instantaneous. Whether it is vocal or not, you can feel whether something worked or not. And that works with both tragedy and comedy, with drama and humour, you can feel whether a moment works just from the energy – it doesn’t necessarily have to be vocalised. You don’t get that on the television at all really. I mean, you might get it on your first rehearsal or something, but you know by 4 o’clock when you’ve shot a scene 17 times, no, you’re not going to get that – and then of course it’s in other people’s hands, like editors and sound people and all that kind of stuff.”
Mathew wears: jacket and t-shirt by Loewe; trousers by The Frankie Shop; socks by The London Sock Shop; and leather Derby shoes by Mr P. at MR PORTER
Which isn’t to say that Mathew finds working on TV any less rewarding. “I think back and reflect on my early career, when I was still 22, 23, 24… and the excitement, and the thrill of being on a film set,” he recalls. “It was all new, it was all different. And there was so much to learn. And there still is a lot to learn, for me the whole process, my whole career, is a learning experience. And if I ever stopped learning, then that’s a big problem for me, because I want to learn from everybody, and hone my craft, and keep moving forward, if I possibly can. I suppose I just love working as part of a team, and I love working with people who are really skilled – however niche their skill is – if they’re really good at it, I find that really attractive, and I just want to be around it creatively.”
Indeed, when I ask about his favourite roles, both happen to be TV roles. “I always feel like my favourite role is the last role I played,” he explains. “Just because it’s so fresh in my memory. So, I’m going to say Gavin. But I’m also going to say that I did a biopic of Culture Club, of Boy George, about 12 – no, a bit longer, oh God, maybe 15 years ago – when I played Jon Moss, Culture Club drummer, who was Boy George’s on off boyfriend, and I really loved playing that role, because it was the first time – and the last time actually, but hopefully not the last time – when I played someone who actually exists. Someone who I could meet and talk to about their former life which I was portraying. And do some face-to-face research with that person. So, yeah, it’s called Worried About the Boy, with Douglas Booth, directed by Julian Jarrold. He’s a fantastic director and I really enjoyed working with him.”
What about his dream role? “It’s really funny, I always said, since I was a very young boy actually, that I wanted to play Mr Tumnus in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” he reveals. “And then James McAvoy did it in the movie version, and I just sort of put it to bed. I just thought, well, I’m never going to do that, because James has done it. But I hear a rumour that they’re doing it again… so I’d like to get an audition for that! I’d like to play Mr Tumnus!”
He might have dreamt of playing Mr Tumnus as a child, but actually, growing up, Mathew thought he would probably end up becoming a geography teacher. “I was quite good at geography. I really enjoyed geography at school,” he reveals. “And I still have a very healthy interest in nature now. That’s continued to my adult life – especially as I get older and I want to be in parks and gardens and countryside, among nature. So yeah, that was always quite appealing to me. But at the time, aged 18, when I was sort of deciding how I was going to move forward with my life vocationally, this is just what I wanted to do, what I dreamed of doing. And I never thought, considering my background and stuff, that that dream was a possibility, but it somehow has worked out, and I am genuinely living a life beyond my wildest dreams. It’s a real blessing; I feel a very lucky man to be working and doing something I love every day. Maybe I’ll be a geography teacher in a decade or so; when I’ve played Mr Tumnus, I’ll become a geography teacher…” he laughs.
Back to the present, what will Mathew be doing for Christmas, will there be any time off from The Tempest? “No, I’ve got a matinee on Christmas Eve, and I’ve got a show on Boxing Day, so I really just have Christmas Day off,” he explains. “But I live quite locally to the theatre, so I get to experience London in all its Christmas glory. And I live in the City of London, so my commute is down Fleet Street, around the Aldwych. And it always feels Christmassy there, because it’s so Dickensian. You know, the old iron lamps, the Victorian lamps, it just sort of feels Christmassy all the time at night. So, when the Christmas lights are on, and the trees are in the windows it’s just magic. I love living in London; I live in the Barbican, and that’s somewhere I have lived for a long, long time. Over two decades. I adore it here – when I first moved down to London from Nottingham it was my dream place to live, and it took me a while to get here, but I managed it, and I love it here. I feel blessed every day waking up here; it’s what London is about for me – the actual City of London, the old London.” It is easy to see the appeal.
