Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Limited The Times (London) April 12, 2000, Wednesday From Corrie to Coriolanus: the Linus Roache story by Imogen Edwards-Jones Actor Linus Roache tells Imogen Edwards-Jones about the Almeida offer he couldn't refuse Linus Roache is sitting in a suitably cold and cavernous room in Shoreditch Town Hall, preparing for some serious soul-searching. "I didn't jump at it easily," he says. "I didn't say 'Yeah' immediately. I had to have a long, hard think about it." He's not the first successful screen actor to undertake a salutory stint in the impoverished world of theatre. But while most actors draw the line around the two-week mark, Roache has just signed up for eight months. His soul must be in dire need. But all is explained when you find out that he's doing Shakespeare, with Ralph Fiennes, in the most ambitious project the award-winning Almeida Theatre Company has cooked up to date. "I took quite a while to decide because I really feel I've done a lot of theatre and I didn't have a hankering to go back to it," he says. "I don't suffer from that thing a lot of actors talk about, that they 'need' theatre. I actually love film. But when this came, I thought... Jonathan Kent... Gainsborough studios... Ralph Fiennes. I mean," he smiles, "if you're going to play Bolingbroke, you want to play it opposite the best Richard there is." And it's not just Richard II. Taking over the dilapidated Gainsborough Studios in Shoreditch, where Alfred Hitchcock made many of his early films, including The Lodger and The Lady Vanishes, the Almeida is putting on a Bard double bill of Richard II and Coriolanus with the same director/star partnership of Jonathan Kent and Ralph Fiennes that brought in the plaudits - and a starry audience - when they staged Hamlet at the Hackney Empire in 1995. Richard II opens tonight, and then they will perform it in the evenings while rehearsing Coriolanus (which opens on June 14) during the day. The two plays will be repped together until early August, and there will be a special double-bill on Saturdays. "It is quite surprising to see how different the plays are," says Roache. "Richard is a play that I've loved for many years. I've been in it twice before, once as Richard and once as Aumerie. Coriolanus is a play I know nothing about. I've never even seen it." One is psychological, spiritual and lyrical, the other is plot-driven; ask why the two were put together, and Roache laughs disarmingly. "God, I don't know. You can find connections. They are both plays about power, how people deal with power, they are both political plays. But I think it's more to do with the fact that Ralph is perfect to play Richard, and it's a play that he's always wanted to do. And I think that Jonathan is in love with Coriolanus. But it's a hell of a contrast for Ralph to play both." And both in the same day? "The only thing that I can call on is that I've done it before with Ralph at the RSC. We used to do King Lear in the evening and Don Juan in the afternoon." Roache and Fiennes have collaborated before. They were at Rada together, the RCS together, even playing brothers in the Lear directed by Nick Hytner. "We weren't kind of matey mates," says Roache. "But we had a lot of mutual respect. I admired his work a lot and we enjoyed working together, although ironically in King Lear all we did was say something to each other at the beginning of the play, and go on our separate journeys, and have a massive fight at the end. So this is a bit more satisfying because we get to work with each other." Of course, both as Bolingbroke and Aufidius, Roache is at loggerheads again with Fiennes in both the title roles. "I know," he laughs. "It's a very complex relationship in Richard. You can intellectualise it, you can understand their histories and their backgrounds, but there is something in the end that is very mysterious about them. I can't pretend that I fully understand it." Born in Lancashire, 35-year-old Roache is the son of the longest serving actor in Coronation Street, William Roache (Ken Barlow) and the actress Anna Cropper. So it was somewhat inevitable that he'd make an early TV debut, aged nine, as a boy with boils in the Onedin Line. "I had bubonic plague. I remember walking around with my glycerin sweat on really getting into my role. I loved it." Roache went on to act with his father in Coronation Street, playing his son on screen. "That was fantastic, we had such a ball," he laughs. "I loved it. I remember some adult coming up to me when we were in the studio recording and asking, 'Aren't you terrified that there are so many million people going to see this?' and I'd never thought about it. I think I came of age in that moment." It was Antonia Bird's controversial film about a gay cleric, Priest, that gave Roache his big break. In fact so feted and applauded was he, so the story goes, that he couldn't cope with the pressure and skipped the country to spend two years in Bodhgaya, one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the world. "Everyone thinks that I went to India because of Priest," he explains, "but I just happened to go on retreat there. And I was only there for about two months. I think my hatred of fame is misconstrued. I don't court it, but I certainly don't go around saying I hate it." He does, however, return to India every year. A follower of the Face religion, pioneered by the American Andrew Cohen, who preaches "personal liberation through meditation", he spends time in Rishikesh in the foothills of the Himalayas (where the Beatles came to be with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi). "There's a lot of meditation, question, answer, dialogue and investigation with other people from all over the world," he says. "To sit and think about these things and put acting, schmacting and schmoozing away for a while is really good." Following the success of the 1997 film The Wings of the Dove, in which he played the poverty-stricken journalist, Merton Densher, he has another four films in the can. "I was scared of film," he admits. "I didn't feel ready to do it. There's a lot of money riding on it. Friday morning, you have to do a big scene, and it has to be done by 1pm, and that's it. But now I'd love to work in America and be in something like The Matrix. I would, I would," he insists. "Not for the money. I think The Matrix is one of the best films ever. I want to be in The Matrix 2 and 3, I'm serious." But while he waits for Keanu's call, there are a couple of epic plays to perform. "I have a feeling that it is going to go very quickly," he says. "But it is certainly going to be a challenge. Just to do justice to the play will be my focus; and to let people judge from that, and not to be too concerned with pleasing everyone. The biggest mistake you can make is to cater to the critics, or to cater to so and so, or so and so. Just commit to the play," he smiles. "It's the best text I've ever come across." Almeida at the Gainsborough, 0171-359 4404 (Thanks to Antonieta, who sent this to me! Mari)