Mr. Frain - The Mike Yarwood* of British Film
Loaded Magazine 1999
By Pete Stanton
 According to his picture on my fax, James Frain looks just like Galon from Planet Of The Apes. Or Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. The fax is blurred, admittedly, but from what I can make out, he's definitely covered in fur. In the corner of a cafe on Beverly Boulevard, reading a paper and smoking a fag, I see no filthy ape. Just a bloke looking like Ryan Giggs without the tan.
The bods of Hollywood have deemed James Frain to be their new star to explode from the glittery sidewalks. Reindeer Games, a film where he plays a good-hearted convict alongside Ben Affleck, looks bang on course to be this Christmas's biggie. Last year he received fantastic reviews for his roles as an Argentinian conductor in the Oscar-nominated Hilary & Jackie and a Spanish ambassador in Elizabeth. But it will be Reindeer Games, his first studio film, that will make his name.
A Leeds-born lad, James has no trace of a Yorkshire accent. And that's something he is apparently very good at, John Frankenheimer, the director of Reindeer Games, really thought he was Argentinian after seeing Hilary & Jackie, and picked him the moment he heard his Yank impression. Someone recently told him he was becoming the Mike Yarwood of the British film industry. It's a tag that James likes. His screen debut alongside Anthony Hopkins as a troubled student in Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands got him noticed. And even though he found the work a terrifying experience ("Everyone on set had a knighthood"), the part gave him a gentle push torwards a whoop of varied tellie work.
Performances as a Liverpudlian rent boy in Prime Suspect 3 and an arrogant lieutenant in Soldier, Soldier eventually brought him a lead role alongside Ray Winstone in Macbeth On The Estate, a gritty Birmingham housing estate version of Billy Shakespeare's play. If his roles seem somewhat serious so far, he says this was in no way planned.
"I never set out to do drama pieces. I mean, I want to play Spiderman. I heard there's a script going around. Now I could do that. He didn't have much in the way of powers, old Spidey, but what he did have was that little web thing on his cuff. I like the notion of that. I would like to think that I could get to play a few light-hearted roles. I mean, Austin Powers looks a right laugh to work on."
The films that blew him away as a kid were Star Wars ("Can't make head nor tail of the new one. Something to do with tax, isn't it?") and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind ("I still make a mountain when I have mashed potato"). In his 31 years he's been a care worker, an usher, a bartender, a bed salesman, an assembly-line worker, a petrol pump attendant and a toilet cleaner at a building site ("It never really got clean"). Now he's an actor.
When I ask him if he could go back to any of thoise jobs for a day, which would it be, James looks exasperated.
"Do I have to?", he says.
So are you a Hollywood boy now?
"I hope not. I don't know if I could get use to this place. In London, everywhere you go out is about dancing; whereas here it's just talking. Everyone's checking each other out. I went for this audition for Scream 3 the other day and it was like a cattle call. A meat market. All these actors sitting on the floor staring at each other waiting to be slaughtered. I have a friend who says all that sh*t you get as an actor is what you get paid for. The acting comes for free."
Over his last bit of pancake drenched in maple syrup, James ponders my final question.
"Have I made it yet? Hmmm...I don't know what that would feel like if I had. I can only gauge it by how easy it is for me to get work. And at the moment, I still have to struggle."
Back at my hotel that evening, the phone rings. It's James. He sounds rather excited.
"I've just got the lead in a flim with Natalie Portman. [the queen in The Phantom Menace]," he says.
"I couldn't tell you before because I didn't know if it was happening, but it should be a big one. Thought it might help your story."
It's more likely to help his story, if the truth be known.
*Mike Yarwood is Britain's first great TV Impressionist, focusing on satirizing politicians.
Thanks to Carol for finding this article and to Eileen for sharing it.
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