No.1 for Interviews - Peter Capaldi
Peter Capaldi

The award-winning Scottish actor hits the big time with his latest film, political satire In the Loop, and tells No.1 his philosophy for life – expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed

Peter Capaldi has become one of those Scottish actors that have seeped into our consciousness; one of those people that if you can’t remember exactly what you’ve seen him in, it will all come flooding back as soon as you hear his distinctive Glasgow accent. And he’s been on our screens for years – the actor got his first big break in 1983 in Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.

There would be many more ‘breaks’ to come in a career that has peaked and troughed many a time along the way – the highest point perhaps coming in 1993 when Capaldi won an Oscar for his short film Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Sadly however, this was not the route to the Hollywood big time that Capaldi might have hoped for and in more recent years, we have seen him on the small screen in everything from Torchwood to teen drama Skins.

In 2005, his career was given a new lease of life when he was offered the role of the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker in BBC 4’s political satire The Thick Of It – co-written by fellow Glaswegian Armando Iannucci (whose credits include firm favourites I’m Alan Partridge and The Day Today). Not-so-loosely based on Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alistair Campbell, Tucker makes his first appearance on the silver screen in The Thick of It spin-off, In the Loop, released last month.

We caught up with Capaldi on a trip up to Scotland as patron for children’s charity Aberlour, who are kindly being donated £1 for every evening meal sold at award winning chef Albert Roux’ first Scottish restaurant Chez Roux at Rocpool Reserve Inverness.

Your are a patron of children’s charity Aberlour. Is charity work very important to you?
It’s something I’ve just started really as I’ve just become aware of Aberlour – a charity for vulnerable young people and children all over Scotland who are the victims of really rather hidden distressing situations such as the consequences of living with domestic violence or drug and alcohol abuse. It deals with children who kind of fall through the cracks, as it were. I think it’s hard for people to imagine that there are people who need help in their backyard. I became involved because they asked me and because I think that the work that they do is terrific but they need to have their profile heightened. It’s the biggest single children’s charity in Scotland and people need to know more about it and more about its work because they need money.

Are you pleased with Chez Roux’s offer?
It’s fantastic because the place is very busy and means that every time anyone has a meal there, a pound of their bill goes to Aberlour, which will amount to thousands of pounds per month.

Do you come up to Scotland often?
Yes, my mother who is in her 70s is here so I come to see her and I come for work. I’ve just done a documentary for BBC Four on the history of Scottish art. It was quite an unusual thing for me to present something.

Did you enjoy it?
It was all right but I think I find it more comfortable when other people have written the lines – but it was an interesting subject.

Your latest film, In the Loop, came out recently. What have people made of it?
The critics have liked it, which is nice. We had the premiere in London and people seemed to like it. I think it’s a very witty, funny film but it’s an intelligent film and I think it’s really funny. Those things are not mutually exclusive – you can have something that’s intelligent but is also really funny and that’s what this is. I just really want the public to like it.

Do you still get nervous before a film is shown for the first time?
Not really because in a sense it’s nothing to do with me – it’s all done. I have such low expectations of everything; I don’t sit there and think that this is going to make a huge difference to my life or anything. I was very happy to be involved with this particular project – I’m proud of it and I’m proud to be involved in it. Whether droves of people go to see it or not doesn’t affect my judgment of its quality.

Have you enjoyed playing Malcolm Tucker over the past four years?
Yes and we’re just about to start on what will probably be the last outing – eight more episodes. It’s been a challenge in that he’s not really like me at all. It’s a real character part. And of course I’ve never played any other part so often. You kind of gradually grow into having knowledge of him that others don’t. You are the gatekeeper of his black heart really. We are just keen to try and expand and change the way he is, which in his case is just rushing around and being very foul-mouthed and attacking people. I think you have to look for more than that, which is what happens in the film.

So the film develops the characters a little more?
Yes it takes Malcolm out of his comfort zone into somewhere where he is not top dog. We are used to seeing him being the most powerful person in a little kingdom but now he moves to another kingdom, which is Washington, and there are big cheeses there who will happily slit his throat so it is tougher for him. It’s not his story but the part played by Tom Hollander, a peace-loving MP who suddenly finds himself a poster boy for the neocons because of a slip of the tongue and is caught up in the temptations of the illegal. He enjoys the attention he receives but his heart tells him that the direction he is going in is the wrong one. Tom Hollander does it beautifully.

Some great people have been involved in this project. Has it been a pleasure to work with them?
Well it’s always great to work with the usual bunch but in the film, Gina McKee is lovely and James Gondolfini from The Sopranos is brilliant– I’m a big fan of that show. That’s a big thrill – I was glued to The Sopranos every week so to get to do scenes with someone who is in it was great. He was so gracious as well and a delight to work with.

And of course you and Armando Iannucci go back a long way...
Well our parents do. The irony was that when we met, we discovered that our parents knew each other and had all socialised together in Springburn in Glasgow, back in the days when they were just hanging around Keppochill Road. It’s so strange but they all moved out of Glasgow to different parts of Scotland and lost touch. I thought my mother would have said at some point that she knew his father. She only said to me when she saw Armando, ‘Oh he’s Armando’s double,’ meaning Armando Senior.

When the series started did you spend a lot of time researching how the government worked?
No that was all really boring but we have advisors from the government and they kind of show you the structure and the mechanics of how the office structures work and how the different ministries relate to the cabinet. You always find that that stuff is useful but it’s difficult to conjure Malcolm Tucker up through those fine details. I don’t use that as my inspiration but it is useful as it gives you a sense of reality – it’s good to go to The House of Commons and it’s good to see all that is going on and try to understand that it’s a very stressful world that MPs are in. If they say something wrong there are repercussions and it might just be a slip of the tongue. It’s okay me talking to you – it’s just about a film – but obviously if you are dealing with matters of policy it is more crucial. I don’t know how they do it.

BBC2’s The Culture Show recently had Alistair Campbell on to watch the movie. He claimed it wasn’t very funny. What do you have to say to his response?
I think he’s wrong. I think it’s a very funny film and I’d like to put his response on a poster saying, ‘Alistair Campbell: one star’.

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