The Times Magazine 25existential response to Harry Potter, although
honestly? They’re better than that. The show
is great, a deft, rewarding interpretation, and
Scott is an exciting prospect as Parry.
Did he jump at the part?
“I did, actually. It was definitely something
I was into. We were doing a play and it seemed
like a fun thing to do.” Scott is one of those
who slips into the third person when speaking
about himself in a professional capacity.
Had he read the books?
“Yeah,” he says. “I think they’re
extraordinary. The truth, but told on a slant.
I love the way Pullman tells children about
spirituality or religion in such an extraordinary,
intelligent way. He doesn’t speak down to
them. He talks to children’s souls.”
Given that Pullman effectively kills off God
through the course of the books and Scott’s a
lapsed Irish Catholic who has suffered his share
of shame on account of the church’s grip on his
homeland (more on which shortly), I’d imagine
Pullman’s books talked to Scott’s adult soul too.
Presumably, he didn’t have to audition.
Presumably, he never has to. Too famous
for auditions?
“No,” he says. “Although I’ve always thought
auditioning is a pretty good thing to do.”
Why?
“Because you’re able to understand,
‘Oh, this is the vibe here.’ You think, when
you’re an actor, you don’t have much choice,
but I’ve always felt like auditioning is a good
opportunity for you to go, ‘Oh well, I don’t
much like you either. I think you’re dreadful!’ ”
I don’t care that you didn’t give me
that part?
“Yeah.” Scott becomes playfully, theatrically
defiant. “I don’t care!” He flicks aside an
imaginary rejection with a churlish hand.
Will John Parry and His Dark Materials be
enough to eliminate all residual overtones of
Hot Priest sexiness from Scott? Maybe. He is
a fine actor, no question, entirely transformed
from role to role. I saw him play Paul, a
narcissistic, fame-addled touring rock star, at
the Royal Court in 2014 in Simon Stephens’Birdland, back when his deeply sinister
Moriarty weighed almost as heavily on Scott’s
reputation as the Hot Priest does now. I’d
watched him become someone else entirely on
stage. “Oh, you saw that?” Scott says, pleased.
I quote, “Am I cancer?” at him, his defining
line from the play, as evidence.
“Oh Jesus. Oh f***ing hell. Oh my. I’d
forgotten that line. ‘Am I cancer?’ ”
The Hot Priest association hasn’t left him
yet, which is why I find myself asking what it’s
like to be the very definition of sexiness.
“You get invited to more parties.”
Better parties?
“Yeah.”
Better than during his Moriarty phase?
“Definitely.”
It must be fun to find yourself le dernier cri
in sexy, according to the whole nation.
“Yeah, that’s fun,” he says. “I didn’t really
like being associated with scary. It’s not
what I’m interested in being, in life, being
intimidating to people. It’s not part of my
nature, whereas being sexy to people...”
That is part of his nature?
“Well, they’re very different things.”
They’re both about having power
over people.
“I suppose they are, yes.”So did Scott, bored of scaring people, say
to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer and star of
Fleabag and a long-term friend (they met in
2009 while starring in Roaring Trade at the
Soho Theatre), “Write a role for me that will
make everyone think I’m just really, really
sexy now”?
“Exactly.”Andrew Scott is not the easiest interview.
He’s utterly charming. Really, just a delight. In
between prostrating himself for the offence of
his eye and apologising for not turning up the
first time we were scheduled to meet (ten days
earlier; a delayed Covid test result meant he
couldn’t make it), he ensures I have a good
time in his company. He is playful. He makes
me laugh. His every utterance is delivered as
a grand performance. (“Shhhh! Just... Shhhh!”
he implores, placing a finger against his
lips while expressing frustrations over the
mindless jabber of social media, and he does
it so powerfully, he compels me to be quiet,
breathlessly to await delivery of his next line.)
He finds elegant ways to flatter me. He laughs
at my jokes and is terribly taken with my belt.“That’s such a good belt. Are they two ‘Gs’?”
Yeah. For Gucci.
“Oh. Ha ha! I thought it was the Golden
Globes. I love the Golden Globes. Ha ha!”
And of course, he’s Irish. Clichédly,
melodiously Irish, which makes everything
sound softer and jollier than it might otherwise.
As for the actual business of being
interviewed, of answering straight questions
with straight answers, finishing off sentences,
offering more than a slip-slide of vagaries
punctuated by vigorous hand gestures, none
of which translates into print? He’d rather not.
He tells me, as he’s told other journalists
before, this is because he’s interested in
navigating the line between “privacy and
secrecy”, then says he’s aware he’s sometimes
“got away with secrecy under the guise and
respectability of privacy”, as if signalling
potential incoming slipperiness, which means I
prepare to throw every trick in the book at him.
First up: amateur psychology.
Might Andrew Scott’s gayness be at the
heart of his reluctance to speak more freely?
Perhaps. This is no scoop. He’s been out for
almost as long as he’s been famous. “I mean,
as a civilian, I was quite young [when I came
out], you know? But then, as a celebrity...”
He tails off, allows me to fill in the blanks.
This is another of his evasion tactics. I can’t
very well quote Scott on the presumptions
I make about things he never quite says.
He had to have another coming out?
“Yes. And I have another one coming up.”
He has another coming out coming up?
“Yeah.”
So that will be, what? Tier 3 gayness?
“Tier 3, yeah.”
Scott grew up in Ireland at a time when it
wasn’t legal to be gay, which could certainly
seed an enduring reluctance towards carefree
openness in a person. He invokes the concept
of shame more regularly than the average
interviewee. He was born in Dublin in 1976
to Nora, an art teacher, and Jim, who worked
at an employment agency. He has one older
sister, Sarah, and a younger one, Hannah.
He was shy, so started attending a children’s
drama course.
Did that help?
“Yeah. Acting to me is not pretending to
be someone else. It’s more like, this is who
I actually am. The lie that tells the truth,”
he says. I am none the wiser. He was clearly
talented. He went from adverts to his first
starring role in a film aged 17 (Korea, directed
by Cathal Black), won a bursary to art school
but took a place at Trinity College Dublin
to study drama instead, and ditched that six
months in to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s
been gainfully employed in the field ever since.
How Catholic was his upbringing?As Colonel John Parry in His Dark Materials‘THERE’S A WAY OF BEING GAY
THAT’S ACCEPTABLE. AND I
DON’T FEEL THAT ANY MORE’
BBC Continues on page 37