Dominic West talks ‘Pride’
British actor Dominic West has a charm that comes across even transatlantic telephone lines. When I chatted to him in December, he has no idea that the movie Pride has been nominated for Golden Globe or that his latest TV project, The Affair has also garnered nominations in the lead actor and actress categories.
It takes a while for him to believe the news and he says “Oh really for a Golden Globe? Really? That’s amazing. That is such great news,” he adds. Eventually the news sinks that his latest show has also been nominated including a nod for him for Best Actor in a TV Drama series. The news sinks in and he says: “When your co-stars get nominated that’s always great news,” referring to his co star in The Affair, Ruth Wilson, who went on to win the Globe for her role in the drama series.
Unfortunately West didn’t win his category, which he shared with Kevin Spacey, Clive Owen and James Spader amongst others. This is why it is so difficult to handle just how humble the actor is, perhaps its a British thing. West’s latest film, Pride, which opened in South Africa today, sees him tackle a very different role from his popular characters like Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series The Wire.
In the British LGBT-related historical comedy-drama written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus, West plays Jonathan Blake, an eccentric gay activist. “I knew the director Matthew Warchus and had been wanting to work with him for ages and I had auditioned for him before but he never gave me a job. He later told me about the film and I was immediately interested because once I read the script I was flooded with tears and I was also convinced by the fact that I’d have to do disco dancing and its ensemble,” says West.
Though the cast knew that this was a passion film with not a lot of money attached to it, they all signed up to be part of quite an inspiring tale in British history. Pride tells the story of how the LGBTI community began working together with miners during the National Union of Mineworkers strike in 1984. Margaret Thatcher was in power and the National Union of Mineworkers was on strike, prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support the strikers’ families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person. As the strike drags on, the two groups discover that standing together makes for the strongest union of all.
West plays Blake, one of the few surviving activists from the time and he was quite fortunate to be able to meet the real life character and gain some knowledge of the role from him. “I got to meet Jonathan, he lives in London right now and that made me so much more determined to try and do a good job. I went to his house with Matthew and we had tea and lovely cake. He is a really good painter and also an actor, we hit it off pretty easily. It was a real boom that I really got to talk to the guy I was playing because a lot of them had died, and I really got to ask him what it is like living with a sort of death sentence for all your life.” says West.
West was referring to Blakes HIV positive status, which the film also touches on in some parts but definitely does not make the focal point of the story. “He said a lot of interesting things like one of the reasons he is alive is because he didn’t take the drugs that they were providing at the time, which killed everybody who took them, its the nature of medical research I suppose,” says West.
Many of the characters in the film balanced the comedic and more camp aspects of their characters with the more hard hitting truth and prejudice of the time. West says he found the humanity of his character through the humour, “I’m one of those people that believe if something is true then it can be funny,” he says. This rings true for the rest of the cast who give audiences laughs upon laughs.
In Pride, we see these characters comically and tragically come to life through the lens of this ensemble cast led by Bill Nighy (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and BAFTA Award nominee Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) with the other roles played by a host of well-known British actors including Paddy Considine (Dead Man’s Shoes) and Joseph Gilgun (This Is England) as well as relatively new faces such as Ben Schnetzer (The Book Thief, Posh), George MacKay (How I Live Now, Sunshine On Leith) and Faye Marsay (The White Queen, Fresh Meat).
The film has been nominated for a Golden Globe and three BAFTAs and has already won four British Independent Film Awards for Best Supporting Actor/Actress and Best British Independent Film. Critics and fans alike have lauded it for its unique perspective and humorous nature.
The film is an important one to watch as it pieces together aspects of the world history that many have probably forgotten and also shows how relevant the story still is in the modern world. And if you do not want to go and watch it for the inherent politics, West’s disco dance is enough reason to check it out because he steals the show.
“It was absolutely exhausting, I was sweating quite hard and it was actually quite hard,” he laughs. The film is delightful and almost guaranteed to be fun, even for the most conservative audiences, after all some historical perspective never hurt anyone.
Pride opens in cinemas around the country today (January 16). Watch the trailer below:
