Jonathan Slinger is the RSC's brightest talent – and now he's about to take on Hamlet. He tells Lyn Gardner why his Dane will be a psychological one-off – and how he feels sorry for handsome actors
Jonathan Slinger stands in the Royal Shakespeare Company's London rehearsal room, holding Yorick's skull aloft and at arm's length. He bursts out laughing. "If there is any more boring cliche in theatre than that pose, I don't know what it is." He brings the skull over to the sofa and sits cradling it against his chest. "This is what I really want to do, hold it close, but the text doesn't allow it. Hamlet says he's disgusted by the skull, so I can't. But I'm trying to find out how to play the scene – I don't want to be a cliche."
Cliche is not a word you would use about Slinger, in my view the most exciting and versatile actor to emerge from the RSC in years. He may not be a household name, and is the first to admit he hasn't got the leading-man looks that make Hollywood sit up and take notice. But you can't take your eyes off him when he's on stage. He can be incredibly brave, with a dangerous, almost glittering edge to his performances; he has the knack of appearing unrecognisable from one role to the next, at home with both high comedy and tragedy.
Slinger's ascent to RSC royalty came through playing two very different kings: a drag-queen Richard II in 2007, and a gleefully malevolent Richard III in Michael Boyd's 2008 complete history plays cycle. Ironically, Boyd had auditioned Slinger for the RSC and turned him down; it was Gregory Doran (then an associate director, now head of the RSC) who spied his potential, bringing him into the company in 2005 to play a jealous, malicious Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Slinger admits that, when he first turned up at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1991, he envied the traditional good looks of many of his male contemporaries. Now, at 40, he thinks his appearance has worked in his favour, helping him develop his abilities as an actor. "It's quite difficult for the incredibly good-looking poor dears, who are getting jobs essentially because of their looks, and for whom ability is a secondary consideration. I've seen it with some of my friends. Unless you are very careful, you are not exercising your skill and getting better. That's never been an issue for me – I've only ever got the job because I'm good. There are more actors out there with a leading-man aesthetic, but the people I am up against for jobs are often the better actors, because they have to work at it. It's meant that I haven't been able to get complacent about what I do. Nobody is knocking at my door and offering me a living because my face fits and looks good. That's cool. It suits me."
And in fact, for the past 10 years, Slinger has been in fairly constant demand. Now the big one – Hamlet – looms, directed by David Farr in a loosely contemporary setting: a run-down public-school fencing gym, over which hangs a Latin motto: "Sound in body; sound in mind". They are currently playing with the opening, having Hamlet return to the empty gym and sensing a presence: there is the suggestion that it is Hamlet's grief that unlocks the ghost of his father.
Slinger has been hitting on previous Hamlets – he doesn't say who – for tips. "They all say the same thing: whatever you do, it's one of the few parts where you don't play it, it plays you." He looks thoughtful. "Which of course begs the question, 'Who am I?' This echoes another former RSC Hamlet, Roger Rees, who once said that while every actor longs to bring something special to Hamlet, in the end they can only bring themselves.
"Of course I wonder how my Hamlet will be seen," Slinger continues. "You want to be one of the good ones, one of the ones people remember." He reckons that most Hamlets are remembered for, and reduced to, one essential quality: "David Warner's melancholy Hamlet", or "David Tennant's quick-witted, mercurial Hamlet". But he wants to take his Hamlet "out of the boxes, because he is all those things and more. He is the ultimate manifestation of what it is to be human: we are all gloriously antithetical and contrary."
It has been said that it is not possible to play Hamlet in a psychologically "true" way, because Shakespeare wrote a series of character sketches rather than an individual. But Slinger doesn't buy this argument at all. "This is the quote that's going to hang me," he says, "but I'm going to try to achieve what people say is impossible. I want to make him a psychologically understandable Hamlet. I do honestly think that's what Shakespeare wrote: a very complex person. And I'm in a slightly win-win situation: if I achieve it, then amazing. And if I don't – and depending to what degree I don't – the worst that people will say is that it was a wholly unreasonable ambition because nobody has ever done it. It will just serve as further proof to those who say it's impossible."
Slinger has already played many of the major Shakespearean roles, including Macbeth and Malvolio. What's left after Hamlet? "I'll probably step away from the RSC after Hamlet, though I also feel I'll be back. I'd love to play Benedick in Much Ado. But there's so much I still want to do, and staying too long in one place can be dangerous. Money, fame and fortune don't matter to me. I just want to get better. If, at my funeral, there were six of the people I most admire in the industry standing around the grave saying, 'He was a brilliant actor', it wouldn't matter to me if nobody else knew who I was." Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
Jonathan Slinger stands in the Royal Shakespeare Company's London rehearsal room, holding Yorick's skull aloft and at arm's length. He bursts out laughing. "If there is any more boring cliche in theatre than that pose, I don't know what it is." He brings the skull over to the sofa and sits cradling it against his chest. "This is what I really want to do, hold it close, but the text doesn't allow it. Hamlet says he's disgusted by the skull, so I can't. But I'm trying to find out how to play the scene – I don't want to be a cliche."
Cliche is not a word you would use about Slinger, in my view the most exciting and versatile actor to emerge from the RSC in years. He may not be a household name, and is the first to admit he hasn't got the leading-man looks that make Hollywood sit up and take notice. But you can't take your eyes off him when he's on stage. He can be incredibly brave, with a dangerous, almost glittering edge to his performances; he has the knack of appearing unrecognisable from one role to the next, at home with both high comedy and tragedy.
Slinger's ascent to RSC royalty came through playing two very different kings: a drag-queen Richard II in 2007, and a gleefully malevolent Richard III in Michael Boyd's 2008 complete history plays cycle. Ironically, Boyd had auditioned Slinger for the RSC and turned him down; it was Gregory Doran (then an associate director, now head of the RSC) who spied his potential, bringing him into the company in 2005 to play a jealous, malicious Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Slinger admits that, when he first turned up at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1991, he envied the traditional good looks of many of his male contemporaries. Now, at 40, he thinks his appearance has worked in his favour, helping him develop his abilities as an actor. "It's quite difficult for the incredibly good-looking poor dears, who are getting jobs essentially because of their looks, and for whom ability is a secondary consideration. I've seen it with some of my friends. Unless you are very careful, you are not exercising your skill and getting better. That's never been an issue for me – I've only ever got the job because I'm good. There are more actors out there with a leading-man aesthetic, but the people I am up against for jobs are often the better actors, because they have to work at it. It's meant that I haven't been able to get complacent about what I do. Nobody is knocking at my door and offering me a living because my face fits and looks good. That's cool. It suits me."
And in fact, for the past 10 years, Slinger has been in fairly constant demand. Now the big one – Hamlet – looms, directed by David Farr in a loosely contemporary setting: a run-down public-school fencing gym, over which hangs a Latin motto: "Sound in body; sound in mind". They are currently playing with the opening, having Hamlet return to the empty gym and sensing a presence: there is the suggestion that it is Hamlet's grief that unlocks the ghost of his father.
Slinger has been hitting on previous Hamlets – he doesn't say who – for tips. "They all say the same thing: whatever you do, it's one of the few parts where you don't play it, it plays you." He looks thoughtful. "Which of course begs the question, 'Who am I?' This echoes another former RSC Hamlet, Roger Rees, who once said that while every actor longs to bring something special to Hamlet, in the end they can only bring themselves.
"Of course I wonder how my Hamlet will be seen," Slinger continues. "You want to be one of the good ones, one of the ones people remember." He reckons that most Hamlets are remembered for, and reduced to, one essential quality: "David Warner's melancholy Hamlet", or "David Tennant's quick-witted, mercurial Hamlet". But he wants to take his Hamlet "out of the boxes, because he is all those things and more. He is the ultimate manifestation of what it is to be human: we are all gloriously antithetical and contrary."
It has been said that it is not possible to play Hamlet in a psychologically "true" way, because Shakespeare wrote a series of character sketches rather than an individual. But Slinger doesn't buy this argument at all. "This is the quote that's going to hang me," he says, "but I'm going to try to achieve what people say is impossible. I want to make him a psychologically understandable Hamlet. I do honestly think that's what Shakespeare wrote: a very complex person. And I'm in a slightly win-win situation: if I achieve it, then amazing. And if I don't – and depending to what degree I don't – the worst that people will say is that it was a wholly unreasonable ambition because nobody has ever done it. It will just serve as further proof to those who say it's impossible."
Slinger has already played many of the major Shakespearean roles, including Macbeth and Malvolio. What's left after Hamlet? "I'll probably step away from the RSC after Hamlet, though I also feel I'll be back. I'd love to play Benedick in Much Ado. But there's so much I still want to do, and staying too long in one place can be dangerous. Money, fame and fortune don't matter to me. I just want to get better. If, at my funeral, there were six of the people I most admire in the industry standing around the grave saying, 'He was a brilliant actor', it wouldn't matter to me if nobody else knew who I was." Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.