For today’s featured interview with Stephen Moyer, we selected a print interview that some of you may not have seen before. When Ny-Lon was released in Great Britain back in 2004, Steve did an in-depth interview with Rob Driscoll of Western Mail. Quite a bit is discussed in this interview, including being attacked in a supermarket by someone who can’t distinguish the actor from the character (Jason in Men Only), trans Atlantic relationships, how he sees himself in Michael Antonioni, and why he chose acting over music for a profession. We hope you enjoy this interview as much as we did; Steve is quite reflective here.
Steve in promotional shot for Ny-Lon (2004)
New series NY-LON could be billed as summer 2004′s When Harry Met Sally, Friends and Sex and the City rolled into one. Rob Driscoll meets its star Stephen Moyer
Stephen Moyer is hoping public reaction to his latest starring role in a major TV drama series is a bit healthier than the last time around. “I was accosted in Sainsbury’s,” recalls the 34-year-old actor, grimacing at the memory. “This woman rushed up to me and started shouting, ‘How dare you!’ plus a few more unprintable things.” The drama in question was Channel 4′s controversial two-part Men Only, in which Moyer played Jason, one of a group of morally-questionable males dabbling in dangerous areas of sex and drugs, and ultimately, gang rape.
Not that he is necessarily excusing that woman’s unprovoked ‘attack’ on him, that day in his local supermarket. But it certainly took him by surprise. He had only recently returned from a three-month shoot in Slovakia for another film, and had missed the TV transmission of Men Only in 2001. “I’d been keeping in touch with all the other guys in the drama, like Marc Warren, Martin Freeman and Daniel Ryan, but as I was in Slovakia I never got to see the show, or read any of the buzz around it,” said Moyer. “Marc and Martin got that kind of negative reaction much more in the immediate aftermath of the programme going out – so in retrospect, I was glad I wasn’t here!”
“It was pretty exceptional. People viewed it that the boys in Men Only got away with it, because there was no court case and they didn’t go down – but anyone who looked deeper into it would realise that all the characters were going through their own mental breakdowns at that time, and that’s why I still think it’s a very clever piece of drama.”
Moyer’s latest small-screen role should hopefully elicit a much more positive response from passers-by as his character is nothing less than a total romantic. NY-LON is a six-part drama, again from Channel 4, which tells the story of a very modern, long-distance love affair, set in two great cities, New York and London (hence the title). The series is penned by Simon Burke – creator of Clive (King Arthur) Owen’s fondly-remembered ITV drama series Chancer, who more recently adapted Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth to great acclaim for Channel 4.
Edie and Michael (Ny-Lon)
Moyer stars as Michael, a street-smart, hard-nosed city trader who meets, by sheer chance, New Yorker Edie (Rashida Jones) one night in a London pub. She’s had her bag stolen, he tries to help her, and the attraction would seem to be instant, sparky and mutual. So much so that he can’t get her out of her head, so when Edie returns to New York the next day, Michael catches the next flight out there to continue the hardly-begun romance.
Impetuous, impulsive, foolish behaviour? Or splendidly, gorgeously upbeat, romantic and optimistic? Of course, not everyone can afford to hop on a plane and travel 30,000 miles, ostensibly to drop off an earring, and it’s a definite bonus that Michael is a high-flying broker with a lifestyle to match. “It IS incredibly romantic,” says Essex-born Moyer. “When you fall for somebody, you don’t think about the practicalities of it – you just go feet first.”
Moyer knows what he’s talking about. He’s done it himself; had that long-distance love affair, that is. The girl he was wooing lived even further away, in Los Angeles, yet they kept up the agonising, jet-lagged to-ing and fro-ing for a fair while. “I met her at 8.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 1997, in Los Angeles, and I moved in at 6am on New Year’s Day – around 10 hours later,” he recalls, only revealing the details when pushed. “She was an actress, and it lasted a few months. I’d be in LA, then she’d come to London. Literally, at the beginning, we were having just hours apart. At the time, I was making the drama series Ultraviolet for Channel 4. I’d fly out to LA, and three hours later she’d get the next flight back. Sure, it was all very romantic, and very exciting, and while you’re working it’s fine, because you’ve got some cash. But it’s expensive and difficult, and after a couple of months, when you need to be back home looking for work, the varnish gets tarnished. On reflection, I was a bit too young to handle it all properly.”
The long-distance love affair in NY-LON is similarly fraught with logistical difficulties – one of them being the girl’s total incredulity when the guy turns up at her New York pad, leading her to describe him as a ‘crazy British stalker’. Indeed, at the outset, these two people would seem to have little in common. He’s a work-obsessed London city boy, she’s a laid-back Manhattanite, immersed in the indie music scene. One chance look, one coincidence in a million, and both their worlds are changed forever.
Candid of Steve, 2004
Moyer was so determined to land the role of Michael he auditioned five times. After he’d read the script, he was bowled over by the coincidences with his own life, and to a certain extent, his character. “Later on it becomes apparent that Michael is a West Ham supporter, and he’s from Essex – and that’s me!” says Moyer, who was born in Herongate, near Brentwood. “So much of it comes back to my background. And there are not many of us West Ham supporters left! There are other similarities with our characters, though, if anything, I think I’m a bit more impulsive! He’s quite dark, and there are a lot of barriers in his life. He is from a Catholic background, and when, at the end of Episode One, his ex-girlfriend turns up, pregnant with his child, he has to see that through; he has a strict moral code, and that’s crippling in a way.”
Moyer himself has two children – a son, Billy, aged four, from a previous relationship, and two-year-old Lilac, by his current partner, journalist Lorian. Moyer clearly loves being around children but he misses his family whenever he’s away, as with his frequent New York sojourns while filming NY-LON. “Working there was completely different from being there as a tourist. The pace and drive is there, but I did feel relaxed there. Nevertheless, I just kept wanting to be in London. For the family, really, and Hampstead Heath.”
Moyer hopes that NY-LON strikes a chord with today’s modern TV audience. For a start, it’s his biggest profile work yet, in a career where, Men Only apart, he’s tended to land supporting parts in many popular shows. But NY-LON, although essentially an accessible, feel good affair, is notably more ambitious than a lot of mainstream TV drama. “It’s very cleverly shot, and demands your attention,” explains Moyer, “as there’s a fair bit of cross-cutting and split screen, and there are time re-winds too, as we are dealing with two cities separated by eight hours each day. I know it’s very fashionable to use split screen these days, but what I like about what Simon Burke has done is that he only uses it when a character is thinking about another one, or if there’s a phone call – when it has purpose, and it’s never superfluous. It’s not a namby-pamby romance either. They’re both gutsy people from different walks of life, they’re not going to take any rubbish, but she completely rocks his world, and that’s what I think is the crux of this piece. He’s not used to having something like that happen to him. I was hooked 10 pages into the script.”
Elvis?
Moyer’s next role for television will be yet another turnaround in character; he’ll be playing a 1960s, Billy Fury-style rock star in the third part of The Quest, David Jason’s nostalgic, semi-autobiographical comedy-drama. “It’s a really cool part,” says Moyer. “The character’s called Danny Duke, a very slick English pop star, all combed-back, quiffed hair, and I do a couple of Elvis-like songs.” That part of the proceedings came surprisingly easy for Moyer. In his late teens he was the lead singer of a band called Prophecy. “We weren’t rubbish. We got offered a contract when we were 18,” says Moyer, not a little proudly. “But we were all doing our A-levels, I’d just got into [drama school] LAMDA, the others were going to university or music college, and we were all about to do what we really wanted to do with our lives. So we said no.”
Does he have any regrets now?
“What, about being a pop star? No, none at all,” he smiles. “I had a decent enough voice, and I played the harmonica. But I think I was always itching to act, and these days, I reckon there’s a bit more longevity in that career.”
And let’s just hope he doesn’t get attacked in any more supermarkets.
