Simon Paisley Day is a local actor from Whitstable who has had roles in Sherlock, The Crown, Doctor Who, and even Star Wars. He also has had an extensive theatrical career, consisting mostly of Shakespeare, spanning from Measure for Measure to Macbeth. I got the opportunity to chat with him over zoom about film, TV, theatre, and tips for budding actors.
Gareth: Good morning Simon! It’s lovely to get the opportunity to chat with you. I understand the pandemic has presented many obstacles for filmmaking over the last two years. As an actor, how did the pandemic affect your career?
Simon: When they announced the first lockdown, I remember Susie, my wife, going ‘Oh my God, I really hope that’s not going to really mess you up’, and I always remained optimistic and thought, oh, things won’t affect me. I swiftly realised however that it would. Theatres were closed, TV productions were shut down and I wouldn’t be earning anything. Theatres especially took a lot longer to get back up and running, because you’re playing to a live audience. By the second lockdown, things were getting back on an even kneel. TV and film companies conducted regular testing and bubbled together their actors. So, if they were shooting a film, they’d make sure that everyone involved in the film was bubbled with each other for the duration of the shoot. Actors would have to say goodbye to their loved ones for a couple of months until the filming was over because they couldn’t risk cross infection. One job I had during the dark days of the first lockdown was at a Stately home in Yorkshire. My friend Jenna Russell, who just lives around the corner, was in it too, and we were playing husband and wife or something. We were going to be sitting next to each other at a dinner table in this stately home in Yorkshire, so I suggested sharing a taxi, but the production company wouldn’t have it to avoid cross infection. The taxi I got in was swaddled in plastic, and I could barely hear what the taxi driver was saying. So, we both drove all the way to Yorkshire separately, and then the next day we were sitting next to each other acting! Whenever the director wanted to come and speak to us, he’d put a mask on and he’d come across and he’d give us a couple of notes, and then he walked away and took his mask off. It was properly bizarre, but I understand why they needed to do it. When I got the big job of playing Dominic Cummings in the drama This England, we filmed in an aircraft hangar in Norfolk, and we were all staying in little cottages near the hangar. We all had to be bubbled away from our loved ones and just get on and work. So, the business found a route back to work which involved regular testing, and asking their actors to be not going to nightclubs and snogging anyone they don’t know, which clearly is difficult for actors!
Gareth: (Laughs) I can imagine. I remember in one offer I had to be an extra they said I had to go to Leavesden studios to do a COVID test, and then go all the way to Sussex for the filming!
Simon: I understand it, I mean, if a supporting artist comes on set with COVID and an actor playing my size of role gets it, they can’t film anything.
Gareth: You mentioned theatre earlier, how does film, TV and theatre compare? Do you have a preference?
Simon: The last theatre I did was a Yasmina Reza play called God of Carnage. It never made the West End because of COVID, so it had a short run, but I loved it. We rehearsed it for a month and then we played eight shows at five venues across the country. Sometimes, a tour will go for 20 weeks, or it’ll do a five-week tour like I did and go into the West End where it will play for minimum of 12 weeks to a year if it does well. I’m incredibly wary of those because I get bored of doing the same play repeatedly for so long. This is especially the case for me as I live in Whitstable so I need to commute in and out. So, I do love theatre, but I much prefer doing TV and film because you learn the lines, you do the scene a couple of times until you get it right and then you move on. You don’t get stuck doing the same thing over and over.
Having said that, I do miss audience reactions in the theatre. On a TV or film set, when the scene is over there’s no applause. No one comes to the stage door and goes, ‘Darling, you were marvellous!’ and many actors thrive on live audience. In film and TV, the most you’ll get is a director approaching you after a take and saying, ‘Good job!’ and moving on. Actors live for praise, and the applause you get after taking the audience on an emotional journey on stage for 2 hours gives you something to feel proud of.
Gareth: Speaking of theatre, you’ve done a lot of Shakespeare. How does Shakespearean acting compare to more contemporary acting?
Simon: It depends how well it’s rehearsed. If you don’t get sufficient rehearsal, you’re not directed well, or you’re not acting with the right people, it can be very tricky. But if all those things are right, then there’s nothing like it. It’s like learning a different language, but you need to speak as if it’s natural dialogue. I’ve said to countless drama students you need to figure out what your character is saying, and then say the line with the intention of the simplified idea in your head. So effectively, you’re saying the Shakespearean line with modern English intention, and hopefully it comes naturally.
Gareth: You frequently play quite authoritarian, military-type characters. Is that something that happened by chance or is it something that you always wanted to do?
Simon: Most actors end up getting typecast, and it can get repetitive. If you shuffle into an audition quite unconfidently, they might think that you would be good for a role which requires you to be unconfident. Likewise, if you walk into the room and you stand up tall and speak confidently then they’d probably think you’d be good as an authority figure. Quite early on it seemed to me I would get cast in authoritarian roles. I went to a public school for the last three years of my education, and I learned to speak posh. So, I’ve got used to playing lawyers and all sorts of military people. But because I’ve been typecast so much I’m itching to play something completely different like a criminal or low-life who isn’t very articulate. I keep telling my agent that if any of these sorts of roles become available send them my way!
It happens less in the theatre than on television, I think because theatre is a big dressing up box. For example, you could be doing a Shakespeare play and there’s a cast list of 28 characters, but they haven’t got 28 actors. So, they get a team of 10 actors and everyone has to play multiple roles. Within those plays I had the most fun I’ve ever had in the theatre. I was doing Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure around some American universities with four friends about 25 years ago. We had no costumes, really. We had no props. Just the language. Since there was only five of us, each of us played at least three roles. I remember I played Angelo, who’s the sort of corrupt power figure, and this geezer called Frog, who was always getting into trouble. Another was this pimp who was trying to get people for his prostitutes. Playing multiple roles in a play is the most fun in the world. Within one scene you’re flipping from one character to another with different posture and different voices. It’s shape shifting. Which is why we all go into it because we don’t want to be ourselves, we want to be someone else for a bit.
Gareth: That’s true, I’ve noticed actors tend to get a lot of praise for versatility. One authoritarian role you played was in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; you played General Quinn in a scene where you get choked by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). As an avid Star Wars fan, I must ask – what was it like being on set? Was that you being thrown in the air or was it a stunt double?
Simon: Well, it was a combination of me and a tall, skinny stunt guy. The stunt guy is who you see being thrown in the air, and they had to give him a bald cap so he looked more like me. But it happens so fast you can’t even tell it’s not me. They winched me up to the ceiling in a harness and I had to be on the ceiling pretending to be choked for about half a minute. The whole thing was over in a flash. As soon as I finished filming, they took me off to this room filled with cameras. They then asked me to pull several different faces for the cameras, so I stood there for about 10 minutes being photographed at all different angles. It was so they could CGI my face onto the stunt double just in case they decide to do it in close-up.
But was it enjoyable? Not really. There was a lot of pressure on set, and you were made to feel like you were very, very lucky to be there. JJ Abrams, the director, he was nice. Everyone else was rather gruff and business-like. It was not a particularly friendly set up. Hilariously, none of the actors in my scene knew whether they had lines until the day of shooting. We walked onto set and we all sat around the big table, and this woman comes around and hands everyone laminated scripts of the scene that we’re about to do. I look down and I see my character, General Quinn, has a few lines. Richard E Grant, who’s sitting next to me, also had some lines. Several of the other actors however did not have any lines, and they were looking pretty frustrated because it’s now emerged to them that they’re supporting artists for the scene.
JJ Abrams then comes on and he’s nice and friendly to everyone. Adam Driver then came on in his Kylo Ren costume, and I thought maybe he’ll come around and go ‘Hey I’m Adam, nice to meet you!’ but clearly, he thinks he’s a bit too cool for that. Richard E Grant kept forgetting his lines as well which was rather funny. I wasn’t even allowed to take a picture of the script so I could learn my lines because they didn’t allow phones on set! But I guess it’s so the plot doesn’t get leaked and no one bothers to see the film. The whole thing was shrouded in secrecy.
Gareth: That’s understandable since it’s backed by Disney after all. The other recent role I wanted to talk to you about was Dominic Cummings. It’s a coincidence that you were in Brexit: The Uncivil War alongside Benedict Cumberbatch who played Dominic Cummings, and now you’re playing Dominic Cummings yourself in the new drama, This England. So, what can you say about that role and how did you prepare for it?
Simon: I’ve worked with Cumberbatch a couple of times now, and he’s a nice fellow, but I thought when he played Dominic Cummings he was just playing himself really. But I guess that’s what you do as a big film actor. You basically play yourself and let the character come to you. Dominic Cummings is quite shy and doesn’t like the media, so there wasn’t much footage of him to go on. But I watched what I could find, and I just played him as a slightly arrogant, more intense version of Cumberbatch’s. Although I’m sure Dominic Cummings isn’t as arrogant as I portrayed him to be, I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice husband and dad.
Gareth: So the drama is about the government dealing with the pandemic during the first lockdown, right?
Simon: Yeah, it basically goes from Boris winning the landslide election in 2019, leaving the European Union and then into the pandemic. So, it’s about the first 5 or 6 months of Boris’s government.
Gareth: Have you got a particularly big role in the series then?
Simon: Yeah, I’m like the second biggest role in the show after Kenneth Branagh as Boris. Which is nice because it’s a massive break for me. I’ve played small parts over the past two years because of the pandemic and suddenly I get 55 days of filming so it was huge to me.
Gareth: That’s great to hear. Have you got anymore upcoming roles you can talk about?
Simon: Well there’s a possibility of a film in India I might be doing in December and January. It’s a drama about the Amritsar massacre, which happened 100 years ago when some British officers shot down a group of Sikh protesters at the Golden Temple of Amritsar. That should be interesting.
Gareth: Have you done a lot of filming overseas during your career then?
Simon: I’ve done filming in East Europe because they’re cheaper for the production company. So, they film a lot of things in Prague, Budapest, Bucharest or Bulgaria. I’ve also done one thing in India for a film called Victoria and Abdul with Judi Dench. So, I do enjoy going abroad to film.
Gareth: I have one last question, and that was whether you have any advice for budding actors trying to break through in the industry?
Simon: Most people say to budding actors don’t even bother because there’s so much disappointment and rejection. But I think if you’re passionate about it and you get enough of a buzz from it then give it a go because you never know. You might have the face and the voice that people want right now. It’s not just about whether you’re talented, it’s to do with whether there’s a need for what you’ve got in terms of how you look and how you sound. Your face could happen to land on a casting directors table and they go ‘They look about right for what we need.’ So, if you enjoy it and can take rejection, which you have to be able to do, then give it a go.
Gareth: Yeah, I can imagine it’s got a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time.
Simon: Exactly. On day one of drama school we were told that acting is the art of reacting. Reading and learning lines is the easy bit. You also need to listen to when your cue is coming up, and to listen to whoever is talking and react to the conversation like you would at the pub with your mates. You’ve got to keep directing the focus back to the person who’s speaking. If an audience member drifts and starts looking around and sees you picking your nose or just looking bored, it doesn’t look right. You’ve got to give all the energy back to the person speaking so that audience member is reminded of who they should be listening to. It’s an interesting skill to acquire and you don’t get it unless you practice. I remember when I played Horatio in Hamlet I got so bored of listening to Simon Russell Beale on stage for a year. Even though it’s the greatest language ever written, I was on stage with him all the time listening, watching, and pretending to be interested in what he was saying. That’s the skill you have to acquire, making it look like you’re interested, even if you’re bored silly.
Gareth: I suppose that’s ultimately the core of acting, learning how to react appropriately when you’re not speaking. I appreciate all the advice you’ve given Simon, and thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat about your career!
Simon: No problem Gareth, it’s been a pleasure! Good luck with all your future endeavours.
G does Films 