Steady Eddie
For two decades, EDDIE MARSAN has been one of the most dependable character actors around. Here are eight reasons why
“MY WHOLE SCHTICK,” says Eddie Marsan, “is that people can’t define me. I get offended when people try to define me. Nobody wants me to be me.” Since his breakthrough in the early Noughties, the Londonborn Marsan has emerged as one of the finest character actors around, switching effortlessly between comedy, drama, TV, film, likeable supporting characters and loathsome slugs. Here, with recent projects The Contractor and Choose Or Die now available to stream, we ask him about some of his most memorable outings.
MUGGER #1
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE
(1997)
There’s an early scene in the fairly minor Bill Murray comedy in which Murray’s character, a bumbling American in London who thinks he’s playing an elaborate spy game, is held at knifepoint by two thugs, who become discombobulated by Murray’s childish enthusiasm. One of them, in his first movie role, is Marsan, then in his late twenties. “I was so nervous, and he was so supportive,” says Marsan. “Quite a lot of big Hollywood stars would go to their trailer and you’d have a stand-in read their lines when the camera’s on you. But he gave me 110 per cent when the camera was on me. It was like having a private show by Bill Murray.”