Malcolm McDowell on his early career — and why advice from veteran actors is overrated
In a Q interview, the actor discussed his life on stage and screen, plus his new role on CBC’s Son of a Critch
Listen to Tom Power's full conversation with Malcolm McDowell on The Q Interview podcast (click the play button below).
British actor Malcolm McDowell may be a veteran of the stage and screen, but when it came to filming Son of a Critch, he refrained from imparting any advice to his 13-year-old co-star, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth.
"He's as good as an actor as I [am]. What am I going to say to the boy?" McDowell said in an interview with Q's Tom Power. "I mean, he's got wonderful natural instincts. Anything I could say to him … I wouldn't want to harm that or touch it because it's so beautiful."
Son of a Critch is a new CBC comedy series based on Mark Critch's bestselling memoir of the same name. McDowell signed on to the project after being impressed by the writing in both the script and the book. "I just called my manager and said, 'Listen, let's make this work because it's so beautifully done,'" he told Power.
WATCH | Official trailer for Son of a Critch:
When he was a young actor himself, McDowell worked alongside legends such as Laurence Olivier and Peter O'Toole, but he never had any interest in collecting their words of wisdom.
"When you're young, you don't want to hear what old people have got to tell you," he said. "What the f--k do they know? … You think you know it — of course you don't — but you think you do and you have great confidence. I always had great confidence. Thank God. I never really doubted myself."
The lights hit me and … I really felt totally relaxed and not nervous at all when I was in front of people.- Malcolm McDowell
McDowell's self-assuredness helped him endure the constant rejection that he says every actor faces in their career.
The first time he ever performed was when he was cast in the Christmas musical at his boarding school. He said he was nervous at first and didn't enjoy rehearsing, but as soon as he heard his cue and walked onstage, his confidence came out on full display.
"The lights hit me and the void, the black void where the audience sat, the energy from them — I really felt totally relaxed and not nervous at all when I was in front of people," said McDowell.
While he may not think much of advice from other actors, there were a few notable people who inspired him, such as American actor and dancer James Cagney.
"He's my hero, I love him," McDowell said about Cagney. "Just the way he moved told you everything you want to know about the character he was playing. And I never forgot that. Also, his rapid-fire dialogue was amazing."
The British actor joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after completing school, but he found the theatre company to be too political and "brown-nosing" for his tastes. In 1968, he made his film debut in If...., directed by Lindsay Anderson, whom he considers "a complete genius."
As McDowell sees it, Anderson was one of the first to assert that film was art. The director was instrumental in teaching McDowell about cinema, often taking him to see films by fellow auteurs like John Ford and documentarian Humphrey Jennings.
Anderson's If.... is a drama about a group of students who stage an insurrection at an all-boys boarding school. At the time of its release, the film caused controversy due to its graphic depictions of violence, but it soon became famous for its anti‑establishment vision of British society.
"It's a wonderful film," said McDowell. "I think it's the best film I've ever made, and it was the first one."
From one subversive film to another
McDowell's performance in If.... caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who subsequently cast him in his controversial 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.
But Kubrick didn't nurture McDowell as an actor in the way Anderson did. In fact, it was Anderson who gave him the idea of how to play his character, Alex DeLarge, in A Clockwork Orange.
"Stanley would not talk about character," McDowell told Power. "He'd talk about the cameras, the sets, you know, what kind of light bulbs he got from Germany…. And I'd say, 'Yeah, but you know, I need to talk about Alex — who is this guy?' And he just looked at me and he goes, 'That's why I hired you.'"
Left on his own by Kubrick, McDowell decided to ask Anderson for his thoughts on the script for A Clockwork Orange.
"The first thing he said was, 'Oh, thank God I don't have to make this!'" recalled McDowell with a laugh. "He said, 'All right. You want to know how to play it? … There's a shot of you in If...., just when you're going into the gymnasium to be beaten by the prefects. There's a close-up when you open the gymnasium doors, and we go in on your face and you smile.' He said, 'That's how you play this part.'"
McDowell said that was all the instruction he needed to understand his character. "So the first day, that smile was always there, this wicked smile," he said.
Kubrick's hands-off approach to directing his actors turned out to be a big gift to McDowell. Despite Anderson's help, it was Kubrick's directorial style that allowed McDowell to discover a new way of performing.
"The excitement was making it — was discovering it, was discovering a new way, for me, of acting in it," said McDowell. "With your director, you know, you change your style, basically. And it was so exciting in a way to push the bounds of, sort of, reality. And, you know, it's a definite, of course, style. And it's sort of [a] surreal style in a way, but you believe it."
Written by Vivian Rashotte. Produced by Ben Edwards.