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He's Just a Guy Who Can't Say No

Interview by Imogen Edwards-Jones, April 2000

Soon you won't be able to move for James Frain. Probably best known for his portrayal of Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline Du Pre's husband, in Hilary and Jackie, he seems to have pulled off a well-planned mission to dominate every medium available to a thesp - from stage to screen to the much smaller screen. Not only is he starring in the BBC's production of Arabian Nights later this month, but the next few months will see him in a slew of films, alongside Ralph Fiennes in Sunshine, Ben Affleck in Reindeer Games, Nathalie Portman in Where The Heart Is and, finally, with Anthony Hopkins in Julie Taymor's Titus. And he has just finished a feted performance of Other People at the Royal Court. As we stroll down the Kings Road in search of sandwiches, it is no wonder then that Frain seems weary and a little vacant. "I always disappear up myself when I've been working," he smiles, pointing in the vague direction of a cafe. "Old friends are used to it. It's just the new ones who find it offensive when I don't return their phone calls. But I was so into this play, I couldn't help myself, it was fantastic."

And it was worth it. His performance in Other People was described in Variety as "amazing" and "making a phenomenal stake on the stage as his natural home." The story of two gay former lovers and their female stripper flatmate, Other People is the second play from the American author Christopher Shinn. Set in New York's East Village, it is a racey polemic with a sharply observed script (and much male nudity) about the glamorised yet marginalised lives of its artisan community. "A lot of the conversations in the play were like the ones you've had with friends," says Frain. "It's the only piece of new writing that feels real, that really articulates what I believe in. I was relieved that someone was saying what I'd like to say if only I could write."

Frain was recently back from an 18-month stint in Los Angeles, and Other People was his first time on stage in four years. "I'd forgotten all of it," he says. "Luckily all the others had done plenty of theatre so there was lots of 'Speak up, James, for God's sake.'And I really had to learn my lines," he adds, eyes widening in mock shock. "In film it's all loose, whereas here every line has been thought through by the writer, and you cut one and everyone goes 'Oh, the Text.' It's much more disciplined."

Having spent so much time away from London, Frain is delighted to be back. "It used to irritate me when people said it was so much better here than in Los Angeles," he says. "But it is. It's much better here. Everything matters so much more there. I mean, it's unthinkable that I wouldn't know exactly who was on the front cover of Vanity Fair. Whereas here I don't give a shit. And the longer you spend out there the more you lose your grip on the relative value of things."

To judge by the reception he got in Los Angeles, it's a miracle that James managed to maintain any grip at all. Touching down with a small overnight suitcase for what was supposedly a short meeting, it took him over a year to get home. "It all happened very quickly," he says. "I got cast in Reindeer Games and within the week I was flying to Vancouver to meet the director, John Frankenheimer."

A thriller, the film is unlike any other Frain has been in before. "It's not an art house film, it's a big multiplex. This is the first one I've done. It wasn't like I was offered them before, and I turned them down," he admits. "I've had the chance to be choosy, but not that choosy, so I think a lot of it is luck."

After Reindeer Games, he went on to play his first romantic lead in Where the Heart Is. "It's about a pregnant teenager in a town in Oklahoma," he says. "A portrait of smalltown America and what happens there. I think it might be quite good."

At the same time, he was filming Titus with Hopkins and Jessica Lang, as well as the three-hour generational epic Sunshine, directed by Oscar-winner Istvan Szvabo. "I play Ralph Fiennes's brother," he says. "Actually," he smiles, "I've just seen the finished film and it's brilliant. On-set Ralph was like an old-fashioned gentleman. He's the sort of actor who says 'well done' after every scene. Naturally," he adds, with a thespic flourish, "I love him and I think he's marvellous."

If truth be told, the Frain family sounds not unlike the numerous Fienneses. At 31, James is the eldest of eight children, his youngest sibling only 13. But those old enough to have careers are already going the way of Ralph, Martha and Joe Fiennes. A sculptor, a stylist, a photographer, a graphic designer and a movie booker, it is surely only a matter of time before the Frains do something artistic together.

"We were desperately hoping that one of them would want to be a banker or a lawyer or an engineer," says Frain. "But the youngest has just announced she wants to be a writer."

James was born in Leeds and brought up in Essex. His parents - his mother a teacher and his father a stockbroker - had nothing to do with the theatre. But for as long as he can remember he wanted to act. "It wasn't a sudden decision, it was always there," he remembers. "I used to pretend to be the Bionic Man. I used to run very fast, looking at my feet as though they were in slow motion and I remember one day doing this in the middle of a playing field and I ran, looking at my feet, straight into the netball post. Maybe that was when I made the decision to be an actor."

His big break came when, plucked straight out of the Central School of Speech and Drama, the 25-year-old Frain was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands. He has not looked back since. He has acted in some 15 feature films, playing every kind of role, from the Spanish ambassador in Elizabeth to the eponymous lead in Vigo, about the life of the consumptive French cineaste, Jean Vigo, a part for which James lost over 16 pounds. But with all this behind him and so many promising projects still to bear fruit, Frain's main preoccupation at the moment is finding somewhere to live. "That's my number one priority," he says. And beyond? "It's a longterm goal to be able to direct and produce," he says. "But, you know, who doesn't want to do that? In the land of dreams and plans, as opposed to practical reality, I'd also like to write."

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