Charles Dance stars in Citizen Cane flick Mank and The Crown
In incredible shape at age 74 Charles Dance, who plays Lord Mountbatten in The Crown, fronts two of this year’s biggest shows
Considering the dignified powerful men he plays Charles Dance is surprisingly garrulous and funny in person.
“It’s a joke darling, there’s nothing dignified about me,” insists the actor who initially trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company and called me darling throughout our interview at the Venice film festival. “It’s just the way my face is put together. People think I’m aristocratic and I’m not at all. I can remember saying to Robert Altman when we were doing Gosford Park that I should be downstairs and not upstairs and he said, ‘No, not with that face, Charles!’ ”
Best known of late for his role as the imperious Tywin Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones, the imposing 74-year-old with a velveteen voice can also be seen as Lord Mountbatten in the third and upcoming fourth seasons of The Crown on Netflix, where his Uncle Dickie character has a lot to say regarding Prince Charles finding a suitable wife.
Dance also appears in David Fincher’s much-talked about feature film Mank, which will screen in cinemas from today, before streaming on Netflix from December 4. “Thanks Ted!” he quips, referring to Netflix’s Ted Sarandos. “I think three of the last four things I’ve done have been Netflix projects.”
Filmed in sumptuous black and white, Mank, now considered a strong Oscar contender with a standout performance by Gary Oldman in the central role, follows heavy-drinking Herman J. Mankiewicz as he battles with Orson Welles over the screenplay credit for Citizen Kane, Welles’s directing debut.
The monumental 1941 film looked into the life and legacy of media mogul Charles Foster Kane, a character played by Welles and based on media barons of the time though primarily on William Randolph Hearst. Dance plays Hearst in Mank.
Working with Fincher marks a reunion — 30 years after they worked together on Alien 3. “When David sent me an email I was apparently the first person he contacted after Gary. (He asked) how would I like to play William Randolph Hearst? It’s a substantial character to play. It’s very much an ensemble apart from Gary.”
Dance scored the role of Jonathan Clemens on the much-derided Alien 3 after his huge success in the 1984 British TV series The Jewel in the Crown. The critics’ dim view of the sci-fi blockbuster didn’t hamper the careers of Fincher or Dance, who was already a star in Britain after The Jewel in the Crown and as a villain in the Hollywood box office fantasy hit The Golden Child, alongside Eddie Murphy.
The Australian caught up with Dance during the Venice film festival earlier this year, where he was promoting The Book of Vision a film, executive produced by Terrence Malick. With philosophical echoes of The Tree of Life, which the film’s director Carlo Hintermann had worked on, The Book of Vision co-stars Lotte Verbeek (Outlander). While in typical Malick fashion the plot is convoluted and Dance struggles to have much to say about it, he notes that the film is beautifully shot, thanks to “the work of a fine cinematographer, Jorg Widmer” who had worked on previous Malick films.
Although now in the grip of a second wave, Italy at the time had the situation under control.
Was he afraid to come to Venice? “Really? Oh f..ck that, darling, no. One of the things that the medical profession has learnt out of this whole situation is that one of the most damaging things about the way we react to this situation is fear … So I think we have to be optimistic and not fearful and fight through that.”
In Venice the fit actor made quite an impression emerging out of the water after a dip, showing off his impressive physique and also kissing his partner, the petite Italian Alessandra Masi, who is 20 years his junior and also in incredible shape.
It was the first time the pair had gone public with their relationship. Masi had worked as production manager on The Book of Vision and will do the same on Dance’s second directorial effort, The Inn at the Edge of the World, which he has adapted from Alice Thomas Ellis’s novel and will star in.
Dance loves Australia and Australians. He has worked here several times, most recently playing Sir Ian Hamilton in the 2015 miniseries Deadline Gallipoli. The consummate raconteur recalls how he was once asked to audition for James Bond, only his agent was against it. “She said, ‘No, no, no! If you don’t get it you’ll be so disappointed and you can have a much better career.’ I took her advice. It was on the strength of the success of The Jewel in the Crown, which was the kind of Game of Thrones of its day. If I’d done it I would have probably f..cked it up because I didn’t have nearly enough experience to take on a franchise like that.”
If he could go back in time would he still make the same decision? “Possibly,” he responds hesitantly. Earlier in his career he had played a henchman in For Your Eyes Only. “I had this line ‘Get in!’ but the director, John Glen, said to forget the line. Roger (Moore), bless him, said, ‘Oh no, you can’t cut the line because Charles’s character has tried to corner Bond quite a few times and finally he’s cornered him and he’s just about to get him and then he’s killed. So it’s an amusing moment.’ ”
Thankfully Dance lasted far longer in Game of Thrones until again he met a grisly demise.
“I would have liked to have stayed in it a bit longer but I had a good four-year run. I had quite a spectacular death on the lavatory thanks to my ungrateful little son!”
Would he have liked them to reshoot the final season? “I don’t know if I’d like them to reshoot it, but I was disappointed. A lot of people weren’t happy with it. After everything that everybody went through for who sits on the throne to be decided by committee — I think come on guys! We’ve had 10 years of this, is that the best you can come up with?”
Next year Dance will seen in the major cinema release The King’s Man, which has been delayed thanks to COVID. “I saw it and it’s great. It starts in the Boer War and goes right up to just before the second world war where this rather shadowy figure with a funny little moustache is seen lurking around.
“I play General Kitchener, ‘Your Country Needs You! and have a ridiculous moustache that makes Ken Branagh’s moustache from the Agatha Christie films look subtle. It’s huge.”