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You seem to have a predilection to play real-life characters who die prematurely. Who would you like to play who lives to old age? NeilHV
Well, I don’t know if that’s true. Captain Crozier [from The Terror] didn’t die, and Lane Pryce [from Mad Men] wasn’t real. I would love to play [the 19th-century US president] Ulysses S Grant. His history has largely been written by southern US historians and so his achievements have largely been denigrated. But his campaigns are taught in all the military academies around the world. Despite a pretty disastrous presidency, he still managed to [sign a] Civil Rights Act – and he destroyed the Ku Klux Klan.
When the civil war broke out he sold firewood by the side of the road to try to put food on the table for his family. Eight years later, he was president. It’s the kind of quintessential American success story, but history doesn’t regard him that way.
Which made you feel more seasick – the sinking-ship stage set from the 2025 RSC production of Hamlet, in which you played Claudius, or HMS Terror from The Terror? Dr_JA_Zoidberg
Definitely the RSC stage, because it moved throughout the production, so you’d suddenly find yourself losing your footing and wobbling. The set for The Terror was locked off, particularly when it was at that weird angle when the whole thing was tipping to the side.
When you’re drinking scotch in Mad Men, which scotch is it pretending to be? CoveRoad
Well, you drink sugar water, which is horrible. The cigarettes are herbal cigarettes, which are impossible to keep lit, which is why you see everyone puffing really hard. It makes everybody look like complete nicotine addicts.
Did you inherit your father Richard Harris’s singing voice? And do you share his taste for rugby shirts? MissusD and TaffRaffia
I did not inherit his singing voice. I’m passable at karaoke, but I would never charge anybody to hear me sing. I actually have a bunch of his rugby shirts that I kept to remind me of him.
What was the process of learning Belter for The Expanse? Did you model your accent on anyone in particular for your role as Crozier in The Terror? Gironans and Team504
Belter was great fun, because that was an invented accent. When I met the coach, he said: “We’ve got three levels. It’s like a curry: mild, medium and spicy.” I decided to go for the most extreme, spicy version, because my character was supposed to be the original Belter. Crozier was interesting because he was Anglo-Irish, and identified strongly with the crown. We don’t know what that accent would’ve sounded like, so we settled on something that sounded like someone who had an aspiration towards being accepted by English society, but was still Irish.
Did you become more of a John Lennon fan after playing him in Two of Us? Goobdroog
I wouldn’t say I became more of a fan, because I was born in 1961 just before the Beatles released their first album. People were upset by our version of John Lennon because, by this time, he’d become the voice of the peace movement, but he was also an angry man who could be violent and had a massive chip on his shoulder. So I got a lot of flak from Beatles fans who didn’t like the version we were presenting.
Favourite pub? Galdove19
I used to go and have a drink with my dad at the the Coach and Horses at the back of Covent Garden. They have really good Guinness. It’s also the place where my father had his last fight. It was summer. He was sitting outside having a pint. My father would have two sorts of interactions with Irish people. One would be very positive. The other, they’d say: “What the fuck have you ever done for Ireland?” He was having the second interaction with this Irish woman and lost his patience.
He said: “I can forgive many things. I can forgive ignorance, because that’s not your fault. That’s the fault of your education. I can forgive bad manners. Again, not your fault if your parents just didn’t bring you up properly. But the one thing I cannot forgive is ugliness, and you’re the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Now fuck off.”
So she goes inside, gets her boyfriend, who comes out and says [does Irish accent]: “You called my girlfriend ugly. Stand up if you’re a man.” So dad sucker-punched him and knocked him out. He was on the floor, cracked his head, and the girl started jumping up and down, going [does Irish accent]: “Dickie Harris has killed me boyfriend! Dickie Harris has killed me boyfriend!” Dad wasn’t sure what had happened, so he grabbed his Guinness and chucked it in the guy’s face, which brought him round immediately. But he was a big boy and Dad knew that he wasn’t going to win round two, so he leapt into a taxi and took off.”
If you hadn’t done the acting, what would have been your ideal gig? CaptainLib
I think about that all the time. It’s a bit late now. I’m the middle child, so I was always arguing with my brothers, so my parents thought I might make a good lawyer. I was very shy, and still am in some ways. When I went to Duke [University in North Carolina, to study drama] and started acting, my mother came down and saw me, and said to my dad: “You should go see him. He is very good.” And he said: “Well, you would say that, you’re his mother.”
He wouldn’t come down to see me in anything until after I graduated and I stayed behind in the summer to do Entertaining Mr Sloane. I’d made a movie as well while I was at Duke. He watched the film in the afternoon and saw the play in the evening. He was fully prepared to tell me: “Forget this acting lark. It’s not for you.”
I’ll never forget the look on his face when I met him afterwards: the joy that there was this thing that he loved that he had a whole new shared area of dialogue, interest and conversation. Those are some of my best memories: sitting around a table with him. He would act out Olivier’s performance in Titus Andronicus, Scofield’s interpretation of Hamlet, Peter O’Toole’s Macbeth, and I’d soak it all up.
Have you and Charlie Brooker ever been in the same room? ThatDamnCat
I have met him, so the answer to that question is: yes, we’ve been in the same room. We were both at the Bafta tea party ahead of the Emmys, when I was doing the rounds for Chernobyl. We are not the same person. I did tell Charlie Brooker that I wanted to be in Black Mirror and, so far, I have not received a phone call.
