Derek Jacobi speaks with a distinctive, richly phrased voice while he and Richard Clifford share coffee and conversation at home. They have been together for 47 years, meeting when Jacobi was 22 and Clifford was 39. Jacobi is known for major stage and screen roles, including I, Claudius, Cyrano de Bergerac, Vicious, and Last Tango in Halifax. Clifford comments on world concerns involving Trump and Iran, and Jacobi responds with blunt humor about being too old and ugly to worry. Jacobi recalls childhood insecurity, describing himself as ginger-haired, freckled, acne-ridden, and unable to look in mirrors. He avoids watching himself on screen because both his acting and his looks affect him, and he regrets not having the appearance to match his talent.
"Derek Jacobi is chatting to the photographer in the living room. His voice is unmistakeable rich, buttered, every sentence beautifully parsed and phrased. I'm in the kitchen with his husband, Richard Clifford, who is making coffee. He tells me they have been together 47 years. We met when I was 22 and he was 39. I'm a child snatcher, guffaws Jacobi from the lounge."
"Perhaps he is still best known for I, Claudius, the brilliant 1970s TV series in which he played the stammering, disabled Roman emperor with astonishing empathy and sensuality. It was all in the voice. Jacobi could seduce the world with his, as he did with a sublime Cyrano de Bergerac for the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1980s. Then there are the TV joys of more recent years."
"Clifford brings in the coffee. He's talking about Trump, Iran and how the world is going to pot. I ask Jacobi if he shares his concerns. I'm too old and ugly to worry. Look, I say, this is not the first time I've heard you talk about being ugly, you don't really think that do you? Ooh yeassssss, he says fiercely."
"Yes, absolutely. I can't look in the mirror. He says he won't watch himself on screen. Is that because of the acting or how he looks? It's both. If I were honest, I'd have liked to have been a movie star. I think I can act. But I didn't have the looks to go with my acting. If I had had the looks as well as my acting ability I think my world would have turned out differently. But I didn't."
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]