'People care more about X Factor than homelessness:' The Office star Martin Freeman on the things... (original) (raw)

Martin Freeman is sitting on an armchair looking terribly conservative in a blue sweater and tie, swearing like a trooper:

'People don't (bleep) care enough. I genuinely believe that. I really, really (bleep) do. They either don't have a moral compass or, if they do, the (bleep) compass is broken.

'We're in a country where The X Factor is much more an agenda for people than homelessness is - even the Prime Minister talks about The (bleep) X Factor...'

Martin doesn't actually like swearing and tells me he's been trying 'really, really (bleep) hard' to knock it on the head.

No more Mr Nice Guy: Martin Freeman can't believe even Gordon Brown discusses the X Factor and thinks many people lack a moral compass

'But in moments of passion, it's easy for a little bit of swearing to come out,' he says. Martin, I guess, is a passionate man. 'People misunderstand me,' he says.

'They think I'm going to be that nice guy, and I can be a nice guy, but I'm not the person they think I am.'

That nice guy, of course, is The Office's relentlessly benign Tim Canterbury, a role that made Martin a household name, but, he says, 'cast a long shadow - everyone brings it up'.

In fact, the primary school teacher Martin plays in his latest film doesn't look too dissimilar to Tim. Nativity is the brilliant BBC film about a Coventry school Christmas play that attracts the attention of Hollywood.

'The Office cast a very long shadow - everyone brings it up'

Now, the thing about Nativity is that it's an improvised comedy. While the final result is hilarious, filming must have been tricky when 'Sir' seems to have Tourette's syndrome.

'The scenes themselves aren't scripted,' he says.'My thing with Debbie [Isitt, the film's director] is that she's always telling me not to swear. It took a bit of practise and Debbie shouting at me, "You can't swear. This is a family film."'

Martin lives in Hertfordshire with actress Amanda Abbington, their two young children and a dachshund. How old are the children? 'You mind your own business,' he snaps.

Oops. As I said, he's not at all like the benign Tim Canterbury. Martin, you see, is an intense man: up or down, nice or scary, effing and blinding, or not.

'I have a very extreme state of mind,' he says. 'Things are very black or very white. One minute you think you're God Almighty, the next you think you're (bleep) worthless.

'This isn't meant to make me sound interesting and rock 'n' roll, but I wouldn't want to live with me a lot of the time.

'I've always had a propensity for gloom - actually, it's not even gloomy, it's (bleep) dark.

I' think I'm less gloomy than I used to be - I've got a very supportive other half.' I wonder why they've never married. 'It's never been a priority,' he says.

'Maybe that's my bit of non-conformism, because the rest of my life is quite conventional in lots of ways. I'm one of the few people I know who believes in God.'

Supportive: Martin Freeman and partner Amanda Abbington

It turns out Martin, who was raised a Catholic, has a rather spiky relationship with God. 'My relationship with my belief has never been easy. Me and God have always been like this.'

He raises his fists and shadow boxes. In truth, there's been much in Martin's life over which he could be forgiven for wanting to take a swipe at the Almighty.

He was just ten when his father, Geoffrey - who had separated from his mother, Philomena when Martin was very little - died of a heart attack.

This is the first time that he has spoken about the tragedy, and its effect on him, openly. Martin doesn't like people knowing his business, never has. 'My default state is wariness,' he says.

'It's about letting your guard down. All my life I've felt people are looking at me. So, when I became known it was like, "I'm not imagining this any more. People genuinely are staring at me. Oh, Christ, now they're coming over!"

'My dad's death was no picnic but, when I was younger, I was hell-bent on not looking bothered by it. I had a bit of an I'll-be-alright feeling about it. But then, when I hit 17 or 18, I thought, "I'm alright, but that wasn't great."

'You go through things you'd naturally want to share with him - like your first girlfriend or wanting to be an actor - but you can't.

'But I didn't want to be pitied. Besides my parents splitting up, I was asthmatic, so I had a fair bit of... not a hard life, but in some ways... like I had a dodgy leg. I had to have a hip operation when I was a kid.

So, you could say, "Oh, he's a bit of an unlucky sod." But I've always had it in my mind not to think, "Poor me". I think, "Poor (bleep) Rwanda", actually, but at the same time, it doesn't mean you don't suffer and you don't have knocks.

'Having children changes your life in every way. It brought me face to face with my shortcomings. I was aware I wasn't perfect and had flaws, but parenthood definitely brought them into focus.' Flaws?

'The way you're cosseted as a successful actor, where people drive you around, pay you good money and tell you you're brilliant. Then, all of a sudden, there's this little person who doesn't give a (bleep) about any of that. That's a wake-up call.'

The youngest of five, Martin was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, but raised, following his parents' divorce, in suburban London and schooled at a Catholic comprehensive before attending London's prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama.

Although his family were not strict Catholics, his religion had a profound influence on him.

'My first moral touchstone was Jesus,' he says. 'So how about that for an uphill struggle? Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King - anything less than that and you're failing. It's ridiculous, but I also know it's true of myself.

Robert Powell in the 1970s drama series Jesus Of Nazareth was the first incarnation of Jesus I'd ever seen. I was five. I remember thinking, "That's amazing. He's brilliant."'

Martin says he was a shy child who lived a lot in his imagination. 'I always inhabited another world in my head, whether it was pretending to be a footballer or in a band, I was always somewhere else.

I wasn't quite Rain Main, but I definitely had some parallel universes going on. And who wants to be the short, wheezy boy? I was small for my age. It didn't bother me because I had a way around it - being funny, being a good dancer, being into music - just having my own thing.'

At school Martin scraped three GCSEs in English language, literature and RE, and didn't have a clue as to what he was going to do with his life until he decided on acting when he was 17.

He joined a youth theatre group at 15, but it wasn't until a few years later that he began to have confidence as an actor. 'Lack of confidence and ego are two sides of the same coin,' he says.

'When I was 17, I acted in a play called The Roses Of Eyam, about a Derbyshire village during the Great Plague of 1666. I remember thinking I was doing quite well.

It was the first time I got a lot of really positive feedback for my acting - the first time I had real confidence in myself.

'Acting, for me, feels like an absolute expression - a really necessary one. It would be a lie if I said it's just a job. It's a lot more than that. Vocation doesn't even seem to cover it.

'People say you shouldn't be defined by your work, but I am. Work goes a long way to define who I am and what I am.

'I've had a couple of moments when I've been worried about where my next job's coming from. The last time it happened I thought, "Wow, I'd better do everything I can to make sure my career isn't over."

I worried for a bit. And it made me very grateful for the times I've had and that I've got a very successful career. It made me think, "Martin, you've been really lucky and don't forget it."'

Martin has stopped swearing now and looks much more comfy sitting in his armchair. The interview is reaching an end, but there's time for one more question. We're supposed to be discussing Nativity. Does he like Christmas?

'I love it. I've always loved it,' he says. 'The excitement, the anticipation - just the whole ritual of the day, getting up really early and knowing there's a full day ahead of you - that hasn't really dimmed for me. I'm totally unashamedly into Christmas.'

Which is not really gloomy at all. And this is the thing about Martin Freeman, he's full of surprises, in a really, well, nice way.

• Nativity is in cinemas from 27 November.

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