Acting can, and invariably does, make unreasonable demands upon those who do it for a living. They might, for example, be required to bulk up, slim down, work with animals, or grow an unfetching moustache. Increasingly, they might have to perform in front of a green screen, surrounded by strategically placed tennis balls. All of it constitutes hard work, which is why they get the big bucks. But for Lennie James in his new BBC drama Mr Loverman, the craft demanded something that made him confront a fully existential discomfort: ageing up. James is 58; the character he plays on screen is in his mid-seventies. Rarely has James felt closer to the grave.
“It was weird, definitely,” he says, “but they did make me into a much better-looking older man than I will probably end up being, so I didn’t mind too much.” He smiles. “I was talking to an old friend of mine from drama school recently, and he reminded me that when we were doing A Winter’s Tale back when we were 21, we were playing men at 60 who had to age into their mid-eighties. It took a lot of effort back then. It took a lot less effort now.”
Mr Loverman is an adaptation of the 2013 novel by Bernardine Evaristo, about Barrington Jedediah Walker, a man who has been nursing a secret for much of his life. For 50 years, he has been married to Carmel, and is the father of two grown-up daughters.
If his wife has been deeply unhappy with him for a long time now, then it is with good reason. She believes him to be a carousing drunk and serial philanderer – which, granted, he is.
But what she doesn’t realise is that his philandering takes place with men rather than women, and with one man in particular: his lifelong friend Morris, with whom he has been in love since both were teenagers in Antigua.
Amongst this older generation, homosexual proclivity is the love that dare not speak its name. And so Barrington has long been required to hide in plain sight, causing not just great pain to him and to Morris – who wants nothing more than to set up home with Barrington, and, in these otherwise enlightened times, to marry him – but to his wife and children.
James does a terrific job of making the complicated, infuriating but fundamentally humane Barrington live, breathe, ache and yearn. Over eight episodes, we see him both as a carefree young man, and as a confused and tormented elderly one, for ever forced to keep the defining part of himself hidden away.
“The important thing for me was not to play his age but to play the person,” James says. “There needed to be a sense of consistency throughout. So we see him in his thirties, and his forties, but he was the same man then as he is now, in his seventies.”
Briefly, James pauses to frown. He raises his glasses to pinch at the bridge of his nose, and says: “I’m not hugely good at speaking about my technique, but when you act old age, it’s not just about the body – the knees, the back, the neck – it’s, it’s more general…”
In other words, the 74-year-old Barrington we see on screen, as performed by a man two decades his junior who has been rendered elegantly grey and skeletally stooped, brings a fully lived life to bear on the physical exterior?
“Exactly! I wanted to make him truthful, inside and out. Barrington may be keeping a secret, but he is someone who never wanted to be ignored in life. He is always putting on a show.”
Lennie James has been one of the UK’s best character actors for several decades now. Born in Nottingham in 1964, he was placed in care at the age of 10 after his mother died, and was later raised in south London. He often says that he was initially drawn to drama school because he liked a girl already in attendance there, but he took to it in a way that only cliché can best sum up: like a duck to water.
“It was never something I could even dream about doing, acting – not coming from my background,” he says, “but I loved it. I always loved it.”
He has been working consistently since the early 90s, his most prominent role coming in 2012 when he played a fatally bent cop in the first series of Line of Duty. In America, he became above-the-line famous after spending 10 years on the show The Walking Dead, which, he earnestly points out, “was the biggest television show in the world”. It precipitated a move from London to Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters, and he now divides his time between the two. When I ask whether he enjoyed the fame the zombie show brought, he shakes his head. “No. It was an experience, certainly, but all that has never been my aim.”
This is perhaps because James has always been someone who has taken his position, and the opportunities that have arisen from it, seriously. If he was going to remain an actor, he was going to do it well, and properly.
“I had some good advice when I was young that careers are built as much on what you say no to as what you say yes to,” he relays. “When I first started, I was aware of how quickly Black actors could be stereotyped, and so a lot of my effort in navigating things that came my way meant first considering what my family would think if they saw me do it.
“There was also this strong feeling within my community about what I, and other Black actors, were doing was representing them, and was saying something about our people, our culture and race. I was always very mindful about that.”
He has certainly navigated his path successfully, and with substance. James’ very presence has a tendency to elevate anything he is in, and if his roles tend to gravitate towards a certain sober seriousness, then he can also lift the mood simply with a beaming smile, which cracks his face open to reveal light and warmth.
In Mr Loverman, he gets to show both sides. He also shows a lot of flesh, for this is a drama that doesn’t just talk about forbidden love but spies on it, too. There are several sex scenes between Barrington and Morris.
“We had an intimacy coach, and that made a huge difference,” he says. “It’s hard to stay in character when you’re doing a sex scene, simply because you yourself feel so awkward about it.
“Back in the day, you’d just be given a shot of brandy or whiskey to help you get through it. But the intimacy coach introduced the degree of consent, and a degree of conversation. It helped.
“Playing Barrington,” he adds, “was challenging for many reasons, but I think he has been, for me, one of the most rewarding fellas whose shoes I’ve been lucky enough to put on.”
‘Mr Loverman’ starts tonight on BBC One at 9pm
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