Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503030053
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT WOLF ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
At age 65, in his first time starring in a film, Nigel Hawthorne is being touted as an Academy Award nominee for his role in ``The Madness of King George,'' which opens today in Roanoke at The Grandin Theatre.
``I don't know whether at my age you do get all that excited because you dare not,'' said Hawthorne, who is back at work on the London stage.
``If you get too excited, you get let down. It feels like I'm in a dream, as if I'll just wake up and it won't have happened.''
The film promises to lift a beloved character actor into the top rank of British stars.
``This is my 45th year as an actor, so it does give you a chuckle,'' Hawthorne said in an interview at his dressing room at the Queens Theater, where he is currently starring in ``The Clandestine Marriage,'' through March 11.
Hawthorne spent a year playing the grief-stricken C.S. Lewis in ``Shadowlands'' in London, won the 1991 Tony Award for Best Actor when he took the play to Broadway but saw the film role go to Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Last year, he played the villain in ``Demolition Man'' but was snubbed by the stars, Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.
``They barely acknowledged my presence. It was a very cold greeting, most odd, as if I didn't exist,'' he said.
As a supporting player in the Clint Eastwood film ``Firefox'' (1982), he recalled fighting ``to get another take out of Eastwood. He would look astonished if you asked for it because his instinct was always to keep going.''
In Gavin Millar's British film, ``Dreamchild'' (1985), Hawthorne was edited out altogether from the finished product - a cutting-room decision he recalls as being ``a terrible shock and a blow to pride.''
On stage in his native England, Hawthorne is one of an extraordinary generation of seasoned actors who have risen through the ranks of regional theater.
Television has brought him a wider audience, whether as the supercilious Sir Humphrey Appleby in ``Yes, Minister'' and - later - ``Yes, Prime Minister,'' or as Georgie in the ``Mapp and Lucia'' series, based on the E.F. Benson novels of small-town life.
``The Madness of King George'' is something else. Based on the 1991 stage play by Alan Bennett, the film allows Hawthorne to re-create his virtuosic turn as the 18th-century monarch George III, who lost the ``Colonies'' to the United States and, for a while, lost his mind.
Directed by Nicholas Hytner, who also was responsible for the Royal National Theater production, the film co-stars Helen Mirren, from ``Prime Suspect,'' as Queen Charlotte. Rupert Everett plays his scheming son, with a stellar supporting cast that includes Rupert Graves, John Wood and Ian Holm.
The play won Hawthorne every award going, and now there may be an Oscar.
Meanwhile, he works. On Dec. 5, he opened in a West End revival of the 1766 comedy, ``The Clandestine Marriage,'' playing the decrepit suitor Lord Ogleby and doubling as director.
``I like to play comedy. I also like comedy to be sad,'' Hawthorne said. ``I like knowing you can make them laugh one second and then have them bawl their eyes out.''
Hawthorne walks that tightrope with exhilarating ease in ``The Madness of King George,'' playing a monarch whose suddenly irrational behavior is now thought to be due to a genetic disease known as porphyria.
In moments of lucidity, his George is a kind husband and father, endearingly addressing his wife as ``Mrs. King.'' At other times, racked by insomnia and sweats, he is a study in sanity mislaid.
Hawthorne said Bennett's script - titled ``The Madness of George III'' on stage - was more than a portrait of royal malaise.
George III just happened to be a king. ``He was a man ripped away from his wife, whom he loved, mauled about by doctors who didn't understand and wrongly diagnosed him - God knows that's universal - and then reunited but irrevocably changed, and probably for the better,'' Hawthorne said.
``He ends the film a much more compassionate man himself.''
Hawthorne thought Hopkins would get the film role. What he had not predicted was the tenacity of the playwright, Bennett, who insisted that his star and his director be part of any movie deal.
``It was really only Alan's insistence that Nick and I were part of the package that secured it for both of us. He had control; it meant nobody could screw up his script, as well.''
by CNB