HAPPY-GO-LUCKY Interviews Part 2: Eddie Marsan

On the eve of the release of Happy-Go-Lucky, I caught up with Eddie Marsan to catch up the finer points of acting, managing to be Mr Anonymous in 90% of films and why it's difficult to be Will Smith... How stressful was it working with Mike Leigh?

I mean I love working with him, this was the second time and we have loads of jokes. We tell dirty jokes all the time. People don't realise how much of a laugh it is working with him. You're in a creative mindset all the time because you're working so hard and you kind of have a release with jokes and laughs, much more than with other films... Vera Drake was a scream! Honestly, you could not believe because you see it and it's a heartbreaking film but when he said 'cut' we were in hysterics.

Do you think it helps that a lot of you didn't really know what the whole film was about?

Definitely. The whole way of Mike Leigh is that there's a lot of work for the first six or seven months and then the filming process is part of the discovery process for you and even this process now, watching the film, because the first time you see the film you're so egocentric, you look at yourself, how much you're in it, whether your work is good, then gradually the film reveals itself in an objective way. But it takes a few watches really. So half of it is hard work the other half is discovery.

So you had no idea what else was going on in the movie?

No, it's a complete shock, I had no idea what the film was about. I thought I was going to be in the next Taxi Driver or something! I honestly thought this guy was crazy, he had me creating this character for about nine months and this is a guy that's obsessed with conspiracy theories, he's racists, misogynistic, he thinks that America is a Satanic, masonic project and I thought "what's he going to do??" and he had me giving driving lessons! I thought I was going to be an assassin or something.

Do you think that Scott is a character that needs psychotherapy? And how did you cope with playing someone like him?

I thought he was a victim in a brutal sense, who then justifies all his own aggression. I couldn't stand him. It's a very fine line between understanding a character as an actor and his behaviour. For me, what's interesting in the film and one of it's saving graces is that Sally 's character Poppy could be very irritating if she was just this happy go lucky character right through, but you realise how courageous she is. She's completely strong and courageous and you need that to keep being happy go lucky and what I think is that the film is about responsibility, you are responsible for your own happiness and Scott is the antithesis of that. He isn't responsible for his own life, he doesn't take responsibility for his life, the only thing that makes him happy is righteous indignation - it's the only thing he's got. He loves blaming other people for his unhappiness.

He's a Daily Mail reader then?

He is, he's a Daily Mail reader. Even worse than that... I read some awful conspiracy theories on the web and they really are vicious and horrible.

What's Scott's redeeming feature? If he has one?

His imagination. He has a fervent imagination, anyone who uses En-Ra-Ha as a teaching method at least has that!

Is there a little bit of you in Scott?

Yeah loads. To be honest with you if I didn't have a certain amount of self-discipline and curiosity to find the truth in life I could, all of us, could slip into being like Scott. The thing that stops racism is you get up off your backside and you go and meet people of a different culture and colour, the thing that stops you being a misogynist is you try and understand women and if you don't want to do that the passive side is you retreat. You know when people leave on their own they become more and more isolated and dysfunctional, it's like that.

You've just been away shooting something else, is that right?

Two days after I finished Happy-Go-Lucky I went and did Hancock, so I went from being in a car with Sally Hawkins to blowing up a bank in downtown LA with Will Smith flying in the window.

So how did you cope with the change?

Well it was quite nice, there was lots of time, lots of waiting around... I was quite exhausted after Happy-Go-Lucky so it was almost a nice break! I mean you work very hard, Will Smith is an incredible hard worker so you've got to match him when you're doing a scene but it's just a different rhythm and a change is as good as a rest.

Will Smith's quite a cheery guy, there's a bit of Poppy in him isn't there?

Yeah, I mean he is. I think that's one of the things the film touches on: happy people are often strong people, very rarely are happy people weak because it takes a lot of courage and strength to maintain that level of happiness. He's very positive and Scott was kind of still in my head so I'd walk in a room and he was all positive and I'd be all "you don't know what's going on, let me tell you your country's a masonic project and you're wrong!"

You're often playing a supporting character, but you seem to have become quite high-profile in recent years...

I have but the funny thing is that I've got friends of mine who I started acting with who do television, which I kind of bypassed and I don't know why - I'd have loved to have done, but these friends of mine who are in people's living rooms every week, the recognition factor is a pain really but I don't suffer from that. I get the odd person recognising me but they don't really know where from, a lot of people think they've read my gas meter or something.

What do they make of you in America?

I don't know. My thing is I always play Americans in America because if you can play Americans they give you a level playing field, and if you go to LA you get a lot of actors who want to look like Tom Cruise and so on but there's very few actors who want to look like me. So they have someone like me who turns up who can play an American convincingly, they think, and I come over here and work with Mike Leigh so they employ me! One person told me I have a great working-class face... but I don't know what that means.

So they think you're American?

Initially, yeah. But when I first did 21 Grams a lot of them thought I was Puerto Rican, I don't know why. Maybe because Alessandro's Mexican they thought he'd found this unknown Puerto Rican actor then somebody said "No, this guy was in The Bill'".

When did you decide to become an actor?

Well I'd just qualified as a printer and my boss, who was an alcoholic, said to me "in 20 years you could be where I am" so I left. Then I used to hang out with my friends in Bethnal Green and go to clubs and stuff and one day someone asked us to be extras, so we went and I was an extra and I saw these actors and I remember thinking "that's what I want to do". But it took me years to get into drama school and then I graduated and it took me about four or five years to get employed as an actor, they just didn't know what to do with me. It's not until I got to my thirties that I began becoming employable. I don't know why, I just think I wasn't very good and I was unusual looking - I was always the guy on Crime Monthly, I must've done every crime in London!

Happy-Go-Lucky might just be the film that will most likely put a smile on your face in a British cinema this week. GO AND SEE IT NOW!