British actor Eddie Marsan talks to Steve Pratt about his latest role and why people think he reads their meter

HE has a face that you think youve seen somewhere before but cant quite place the name.

Actor Eddie Marsan puts it another way. Im the guy who portrays the out-of-focus best friend, he says.

Friends of mine doing television and in peoples living rooms every week are really high profile. The recognition factor is a pain really, but I dont really suffer from that. A lot of people think I read their gas meter or something. Because what I do is quite diverse C in the sense that I pop up here and there and in different films C people dont quite join up the dots.

His looks, best described as more character actor than leading man, have served him well, with Marsan working happily on both sides of the Atlantic. Last year, for instance, two days after completing the latest Mike Leigh film, Happy-Go-Lucky, he was on a film set in Los Angeles acting with Will Smith.

His list of US films include Mission: Impossible III with Tom Cruise, the big screen version of Miami Vice, Martin Scorseses Gangs Of New York, The New World and 21 Grams.

In America, he always plays Americans and if you can do that convincingly, he believes, they give you a level playing field.

If you go to LA there are a lot of actors who want to look like those guys there and talk like Tom Cruise. Theres very few actors who want to look like me, explains Marsan.

Youve got people like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and after that theres really not that many. Mike Leigh films always have a cache, people always have a certain respect for the acting, so you go over there and they think okay, well employ him.

One of them once told me I had a great working class face, whatever that means.

A lot of Americans think hes really from that country. Others took him for being Puerto Rican when he appeared in 21 Grams for director Alejandro Inarritu.

Because he was Mexican, they thought hed found this unknown Puerto Rican actor and someone said no, actually this guy was in The Bill, he says.

Hes considered moving to the US but, with a young family to raise, has decided against such a big upheaval. If I spent a lot of time away from my family, then wed go and live there. The danger is Id go and live there, my family would be in LA and Id be making films in Toronto, he says.

I have a very good support network. My children have both sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles. To take that away from them would be very difficult, and to suddenly put my wife in the middle of LA.

Even doing American films, quite often Im not working in LA but other places. It really depends where the best place for a young family is.

Only recently has Marsan, 40 this year, come into his own.

But he has never been employed for his celebrity because, in film production terms, Im not the money, he says. People dont back movies because hes in them.

He served an apprenticeship as a printer, only to be told by his alcoholic boss that in 20 years time Eddie could be where he was. The turning point came when he and his friends were asked to be extras in a film being made around Bethnal Green in London where he grew up. I became an extra, saw these actors and remember thinking that Id like to do that, he recalls.

I tried for years to get into drama school and nothing happened. Finally, I got in and graduated. Then it took me four or five years before I was employed as an actor.

They didnt know what to do with me.

It wasnt until I got into my thirties that I began to be employable. I dont think I was very good before and another thing, I was unusual looking. I was the guy who was always on Crime Monthly. I must have done every crime in London.

Happy-Go-Lucky, currently on release, marks his second collaboration with director Mike Leigh who works with the actors individually for months to build up a character before writing a script.

Marsan follows Leighs 1950s-set abortion drama Vera Drake with Happy-Go- Lucky, playing an obsessive driving instructor named Scott.

He loves Leighs way of working. We have lots of jokes, we love dirty jokes and tell them each other all the time. You dont realise how much of a laugh it is working with him, he says. Youre in a creative mindset all the time because youre working so hard and have a release with jokes, much more than in other films. Vera Drake was an absolute scream.

He had no idea how Scott would turn out in the film. I thought I was going to be in the next Taxi Driver or something. This is a guy whos obsessed with conspiracy theories, is racist, misogynistic and thinks America is a satanic, masonic project.

He has all these obsessions and I thought whats he going to do?.

And then Mike has me giving driving lessons. I thought I was going to kill someone, would be an assassin or someone.

Working with Leigh gives him a certain respect with US film-makers. While making Happy-Go-Lucky, he went for parts in Hollywood movies. Theyd be in London, Id go in to talk and it was very easy because they wanted to talk about Mike Leigh, he says.

Going from a British low budget Leigh to a big budget US film like Hancock can be a shock. I went from being in a car with Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky to blowing up a bank in downtown LA. Then Will Smith flew in and I have a face-off with him, which is a bit weird.

Theyre bigger movies, theres a lot more time and lot more waiting around. I was exhausted after Happy-Go-Lucky, it was quite a nice break to go out there and shoot Hancock.

Will Smith is an incredibly hard worker, so youve got to match him when youre doing scenes with him. Its just a different rhythm. A change is as good as a rest, I quite enjoyed it.

ö Happy-Go-Lucky is now showing in cinemas.

Hancock is released in July.

10:43am Monday 12th May 2008

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