The actor behind Poirot discusses his career highlights with 50Connect.

 

Known to millions from his regular television appearances as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, as well as many other roles on TV, film and stage, David Suchet is one of Britain's most popular actors.

 

When I met him in London for a chat over tea and biscuits, of course we began by discussing Poirot. Suchet filmed his first story, The Adventure of the Clapham Cook, in 1989. Nearly 20 years on, he has made 57 mysteries and there are only 12 more Poirot novels to film before he will have starred in every one.

 

"That's the great dream. We're so close, I believe the pitch is being made to do the rest, whether it'll be yes or no I'm waiting to hear even now. If I complete the pictures and God gives me health to do them then it'll be something I really want to do and will be very proud of. I would love to be able to depart the world leaving behind the complete works of that little man."

 

Unsurprisingly for someone who plays such a variety of screen and stage roles, he doesn't worry about being typecast.

"In the last twelve months I've been Van Helsing in Dracula, Lew Vogel in a film that's just about to come out called The Bank Job, Robert Maxwell, followed by Cardinal Benelli in The Last Confession at the Theatre Royal Haymarket - six fantastic roles in a year. I'm not typecast in any way at all and that has been the greatest gift that the business and the public have allowed me. They know me, which is quite nice, and they know that Poirot is a character."

 

It helped that Suchet wasn't new to television.

"Poirot came in my career nearly 20 years after I started acting. I was already known with Blott on the Landscape and other characters. Poirot has to be my favourite television role because it's been my greatest reward in terms of audience enjoyment."

 

Aged 61, the fact that he still gets offered wonderful roles is what keeps him enthusiastic.

"I will never retire as long as I'm asked to work. I won't retire, the telephone will just stop ringing! I'll keep going as long as I'm able."

 

Suchet's latest appearance as Poirot is in the DVD game After the Funeral.

"It's the first Poirot game in England. We made the film After the Funeral two years ago, and the game takes you through clips, with me as Poirot being your host and talking to you directly. It's an interactive game so Poirot not only guides you through choosing suspects and so on, but he also tests you on your skills as a detective."

 

Cracking the case proved to be a challenge even for 'Poirot' himself.

"I played it last night and was caught out by certain skills of observation that I didn't have! Poirot asked questions with a time limit, and I thought, I can't do that. It's very challenging. Poirot fans will love it but I think a lot of people who like playing murder mystery games will too, it's a good family game."

 

The experience of filming for a game was totally new to Suchet, but he used all his acting abilities - as he demonstrates to me by assuming the famous 'Belgian' voice.

"It was so interesting, because I've never done anything like it before. I get into character as seriously as I would do making a film. Recording all the possibilities was different and challenging, like, 'Player number one you've done well', 'Player number one you have done badly', 'Player number one I think you can do better'."

 

It means a lot to him that Agatha Christie's daughter approved of his portrayal of Poirot.

"Rosalind Hicks, who died a couple of years ago, told me the best thing anybody ever could about my interpretation. Her mother Agatha Christie did not enjoy portrayals of her characters on the screen or in the theatre and hadn't seen a Poirot that she thought was anything like him. One of the greatest compliments that was ever given to me was by Rosalind Hicks who said she was convinced that her mother would have enjoyed my portrayal. I was very moved and became emotional when I heard that because I was sorry that she wasn't around to see it."

 

Depicting a writer's character accurately is what Suchet strives for.

"The raison d'etre for my being an actor is to serve my creator. As far as Poirot's concerned I just wanted to serve Agatha Christie. In the same way as Tom Sharpe who wrote Blott on the Landscape said, 'That was extraordinary, you were the person I wrote,' I would love Agatha Christie to feel that I'd done her proud. Of course you can't ring up Shakespeare and say 'Did you enjoy it?' but I still do it from that point of view."

 

Even taking on a Shakespeare role that has been played by many, an actor can make it fresh.

There will be no Shakespeare plays for Suchet in the immediate future.

"People say to me now that I'm in my sixties, isn't it time I played Lear? Well I don't want to play Lear. Neither did Laurence Olivier, though I hate to compare myself to him because I'm nowhere near his league as an actor. He did play him on television when he was very old but apparently he never had a desire to play him, and nor do I. I've been in the play about three times playing different characters. It's held up as the Everest of all plays, the greatest role, the most difficult one to mount and actually conquer. I don't really want that judgement on me, I'm not that sort of actor. If I play him it will be because there's a moment in my life when I think if I don't I will regret it, but it won't be because of the challenge of climbing the Everest, it will be because that's a character I would really miss playing."

"I can think of thousands of characters that I would like to play, but if I died tomorrow how many would I really regret not playing? So that's how I choose roles, it's the only way to distinguish. A character has to be somebody who I really would miss playing, irrespective of the critical acclaim."

 

An actor's passion for each role is essential, according to Suchet.

"As an artist, and I consider myself to be a creative artist, you can only do things about which you feel passionate. My advice to an actor is never ever play a role from the point of view that it will help your career. I know that because once or twice I've done it myself and regretted it. You should only choose parts that you need to play, that in your soul if you don't play there will be a chasm left behind. That passion is the only reason for taking a particular role."

 

He has never set his heart on a part and not been offered it.

"I've not yet fought for anything that I haven't got, but there's tons to come. There are two roles in my life which I really fought for but didn't expect to get and amazingly I got both."

The first was Sigmund Freud, in a 1983 six hour long series for the BBC.

"I knew that a producer I was working with was going to do The Life of Sigmund Freud. It was going to be the biggest role for any actor in the history of the BBC, but that's not why I wanted to do it. Whether you agree with Freud or not, he was a man that changed the nature of intellectual or ordinary thought on psychology and psychoanalysis. That's the person I wanted to explore and bring to the public's attention. I wrote a letter to the director when he was nominated and I really did go for it. When I was offered the job I'll never forget driving home thinking, 'I don't believe this.'"

 

The other part that Suchet fought for was his favourite theatre role.

"My favourite play that I've ever been in was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? playing Gorge opposite Diana Rigg. I said to my agent, 'Fight for it, fight, fight, fight for it,' and I was fought for and offered the part."

 

He regards acting as a great privilege and a worthwhile profession.

"I consider luvvie to be the biggest insult ever as an adjective applied to the work that I do. That's a terrible thing that has happened and denigrated and belittled the work that actors do and the work that I do and I feel very angry about that, acting is difficult to do well. It can bring to the public something unique - a human being's whole life in a fraction or a moment of their life, as portrayed by the writer - and make the audience forget about themselves completely as they watch you unfold the character for them."

 

Actors have an added responsibility when they depict actual people, as Suchet has done many times.

"It's a huge responsibility when you're playing somebody real. When I play a part like Maxwell I have a responsibility not to do things for sensationalism or just because it seems right, because I'm very aware that the family is alive and have to be respected. When I played Sigmund Freud, none of the family were around. That's different, it's more 'fact stroke fiction'. With Maxwell which is recent history it's mainly fact."

 

He loves getting the opportunity to explore the character of a real person.

"I enjoy researching the characters, the human beings that lived, and trying to get it right for them as well. I don't believe that everybody's all bad or all good. I think we spend our lives looking at other people and being surprised by their behaviour, which is part of being a human being. We're never just one thing - we're constantly changing and being illogical."

 

That's why he enjoys getting under the skin of 'baddies'.

"When I'm playing a baddie I look for what he believes in. When I was playing a terrible character, the terrorist in Executive Decision with Kurt Russell, a Hollywood movie about a bomber on a plane very much like 9/11, you'll remember him as the baddie but I played him because he was a religious fanatic. We all know that any fanaticism is dangerous and religious fanaticism is probably the most dangerous, but if you play the fanatic then you don't play just a bad man, you play somebody who's doing what they believe in, and then it's for the audience to judge whether or not he's bad."

 

Making movies in Hollywood is great fun, although Suchet enjoys the job wherever he is.

"It's not that different actually, except in Hollywood you are aware that film is their greatest industry and biggest export. There's a lot of money being thrown into production - not I hasten to add to English character actors," he laughs. "We're not the Tom Cruise of our generation, we're way down the list. I don't want to stay out there and make American movies, I like to visit and then come back, but it's very enjoyable. You're part of that history in the same way as when I do a theatre play that's part of our history."

 

Reflecting on his varied career, Suchet didn't know at the time where he was going.

"A human being is rather like a spider - we spin from behind, and only turn round to check the web. A spider doesn't know what it's making from the front and nor does a human being know what's going to happen next. We do one thing then we do another thing and it's only when we turn round that we see how one thing led to another."

 

It's important for everybody to keep seeking new challenges in life, feels Suchet, and he continues to embrace interests outside his acting career. At age 40 he took up the clarinet and reached grade 6.

"I've not played it for some time but I've got it out so I can sit with my darling wife and she can play the piano and we shall have musical soirees together. I always enjoyed listening to music but I felt a lack of music in my life in the fact that I couldn't play anything. I liked jazz and classical music and one of my favourites has always been that beautiful, liquid sound of the clarinet. I found somebody to teach me and did all my grades like a schoolchild - in fact when I walked in to my first exam, the examiner said, 'Mr Suchet, how nice to see you, are we examining your son?' I said, 'No, you're examining me!'"

 

He laughs, before describing his latest challenge, which is digital photography.

"Photography's a great hobby, and I love creating art through photography - black and white portraits are my favourite. I used to develop my own black and whites but now I'm trying to learn digital, which I'm very bad at because I'm not computer minded. I must learn how to put photos on the computer and adjust them, though it looks so complicated. I've got to join this generation otherwise I'm going to be left way behind. I sort of shy away from these things, but I must join the modern world. I use the internet for email, which I'm not very keen on, and research, which I think is wonderful."

 

Becoming more technology-savvy is his next challenge.

"I want to ask for one of these little music things for Christmas, I need one, what do they call them - iPods - I've got to get one, if only to challenge myself to learn how to use it. I'm not going to look at people thinking 'I don't know how to do that.' You can carry it around like I used to carry my tape recorder around, which at the time I thought was very modern and my grandfather thought was unbelievably technical. I don't want to get like that. I don't want to become someone sitting in an armchair in his sixties with the world leaving him behind. I want to die still travelling."

 

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If you type David Suchet in the Search box on 50Connect, you'll get a link to a small article: Christmas with the stars - in there Suchet tells how he intended to spend Christmas 2007...