David Suchet on playing Hercule Poirot - Dead Man’s Folly Q&A | BFI

so let's talk about when you first began there you were you played blot mostly villains yes and you are likable charming fastidious but little bit irascible how'd you get it well I I know the backstory now but then I was approached by the producer brownies Minh and I was asked if I had read a lot of or any of I got the Kristy and I to my shame I said no and he said have you heard of a character called Hercule Poirot and I said oh yes I've said yeah I've seen him all that on the screen Peter Ustinov Albert Finney and he said well with we really seriously considering making a series would you like to do it and you you are our first choice and gradually one thing led to another and I got the books and I started reading and I I rang my brother John who I know is here tonight because he's always wise my older brother and I said do you know Agatha Christie's yes cause I know a glee Christie Juno hercule poirot yes cause I know who could Brian well sure I've just been offered the possibility of playing it and I just wondered what you would think and he said but I thought I just wondered what you might think of it he said okay don't touch it with a barge pole the moral of that story never listen to your elder brother but and that's how that's how it began that's that was the beginning Reese but I remember you arrived we first met and you were carrying Agatha Christie poirot stories and you were making notes about the character well you see what happened was that when I started reading the books I mean look let's say you get a famous character you're a character actor you get a famous character from the literature and the for a very famous character in the theater like Iago or any those or whatever and you think how am I going to play him and so that was my first question really having seen and with the legend Hercule Poirot on screen and now I was coming to him in the books and the most extraordinary thing happened that when I was reading the books I hadn't seen what I was reading on the screen now but the reson d'etre why I became an actor was ultimately because I believed of an act to gives a playwright or a writer a voice it's not the same as writing a novel dramatist to play right Nick dear who has here tonight wrote this fantastic script I'm sure we'll know that without an actor if you write a drama there is no drama and so you become their voice for that particular character and if you're playing character like Hercule Poirot then I'm reading a character that I had not seen portrayed before gave me the reason to do what I did with him because all I had to do was read the novels make meticulous notes which I which I thought it was necessary to do because the one thing I decided to do was to be true to Agatha Chris I didn't really care about anything else I wanted to make it right for her in exactly the same way and no differently that I wanted to get it right for Tom sharp when I played blot in blot on the landscape the same thing happened and that gives me enormous pleasure and it gives me the reason a serious reason why I do what I do and they're all the notes I didn't know how many there are there's 96 96 little one-liners that I used to carry around with me well I still carry around in this in this episode here the same set of notes just in case I missed something that I discovered when reading the novels like how many lumps did he take in his tea and how many loves he's taken his coffee etc etc etc and his little mannerisms I just wanted to get it right for her and that was that was important so that's the opening but you also wanted to get it right for her daughter well yes because well I was invited Roslyn Hicks and Anthony Hicks wonderful wonderful dear people who I became so fond of it took me out to lunch and it's a rather it's become a sort of famous story within the family of Matthew and I often talk about it but I thought I was going to be taken out for a lovely celebratory meal to say you know good luck and everything's going to be fine and it wasn't actually I ended up being the grill and and I remember very very vividly those Rosslyn and to Antony looking at me and saying now look here we do not want anybody to laugh at Poirot we will smile with him and I thought right okay I've got the message and that was why one of the reasons that yes in the very much in the early earlier series where there is more is it lighter touch in the in the the short stories as well it was a little bit more I would say a museum without being comic and I hope and I pray that I never crossed that line that I knew not only Rosalind who was a sort of representative of her mother at the time but I knew that it's got to be right for her the family living now and therefore it's got to be right for Agatha because I know she never enjoyed watching her characters being portrayed that was Fame I mean I knew that but I yeah I want to get it but she also at one point called him detestable and irritating and tiresome and you never set out to make him likable know where there's no poor there's no point in making that sort of eccentric character deliberately likable I think I think a lot of writers get sick of their characters and Dame Agatha got sick and tired of Poirot quite logically I got sick and tired of him at times as well he is an irritating little man and he creeps up on you and he does these silly little things and he's he's so panicky and fussy and OCD and all the rest of it and I think to myself let go just stop it and then I realize I'm doing it but but Davie people do love him they absolutely adore him around the world all sorts of people you've been around the world and people have come up to you and said all Poirot is wonderful to see what about that nice lady who you met in Hastings oh my gosh that was one of the most extraordinary things fairly early on it well known often not too early about after eight years I'm in Hastings and we're we're filming and I'm very very tired towards the end of the day and I just need to get away from the set and I move away from the set and we're out on location and I go into a little row and just lean on my cane like that and there's a little old lady willing as her shopping trolley and she looks at me and I look at her and she looks at me again she says oh well I'm mr. Poirot what do I do I mean what do I do I mean I'm wrestling off the set as me and I suddenly realize I've got the moustache I got the padding I've got the hat I can't say as I love her you are I I just can't do it winter what do I say so I think to myself like hello madam and she says how I know she said what you doing here she's having been a murder or anything nice I said no no no no matter no matter I nice things no no I am here on vac homes she says become but I am an elite Oh so does she lovely oh I'm so pleased since she walks on and I think welcome writer and she suddenly turns round and she said oh Jessie can I say one thing mr. Poirot I saw be my dad continued answers usually sis thank you so much for choosing nice things but David to be serious for a moment one of the things that makes Pyro's so fascinating is is not simply a fastidious little man he's also got immense moral complexity he's got true characteristics his Catholicism his moral conscience his sense of right and wrong but also a compassion and you tried to bring all that yes well I think that what what I learnt very early on from from from Dame Agatha was that she had created this outsider I've always enjoyed playing outside as I really do and she made it very clear that he was very compassionate and charming with belowstairs you understand what I mean then with with with all classes but mainly those who did not have as much as some of the others in fact which he allows Paro to poke fun at the English upper class and rather sometimes rather pointed way but always compassionate and encouraging and gentle with with the people that you would not expect him to be and she does fill him with compassion he's a gentle man as well as being what we know a gentleman he is a very gentle man he's also a very proud man it was great egoism he believes it the greatest detective in the world but he doesn't like he doesn't like to show off of course but he is that and I think that the writers embraced that when they began to see that in my in the performance and as and what also grew with the writers was when they began to see him as a lonely person as well but the compassion is there the gentleness in him is there and so is there on the other side of the coin a ruthlessness to bring to justice that which he believes is his present d'etre his purpose in life is in one book he actually says yeah he expresses the fact that leborgne do which is the good god as Catholic has put him on earth to rid it of crime where he is able so to do and he's ruthless ruthless with those who who commit crime and they will be brought to justice but he's also complex as we've just seen in this film for example he allows there to be a killing if you like there's not a justice taken to the Old Bailey all know this is this is something that I found very very very interesting when studying the character that actually he does take law into his own hands one or two several occasions really and knows what is going to happen at the end which can be terrifying can be frightening c'n but he allows it to happen I don't know whether you've got that moment there where she says I want to give a few moments with my son and Poirot picks it up immediately and he goes I know what you're going to do and I say as an elderly gentleman I give give you that right and at the end he goes when he knows they've shot themselves he goes but he does that what about the time you were in costume again in Poole in Dorset and the married couple come up to you yeah well that was that that was this going to be difficult one to tell actually this is this is really a story against myself which is is is good fun it's good to laugh at yourself and I had I had this wonderful couple come up to me a man and his wife and he came up and I was once again relaxing off the set and he said he said at this couple but let me say this that it was a relationship that his wife would always always go along with with what her husband says and you'll you'll immediately recognize the type if I do it correctly and he said oh hello hello hello and I said to him oh hello and he said oh I just want to tell you that I mean we I mean we're so thrilled on me yes we search it we really are are we yes ma'am we I mean it's really of such a wonderful thing to see you here and I just want to let you know that we really really really watch all your programs and we love them don't we yes we do we love and we wouldn't we wouldn't miss one I mean that we wouldn't miss one would be no no no we watch every single one we were absolutely glued glued glue glued and I said whether that is very kind of you it is wonderful to hear this because I'm still in costume and I'm not God you know and he said I just I I mean that you don't mind if I say just one thing do you and I said no no tell me said I can't understand a bloody word you ever say go back on the set after that but the other thing David too is that that you've survived not only some actors suffer from typecasting but you've done so many other things television Maxwell Mel Mott Jagger's and great expectations in the theater all my son's long day's journey was that it was that difficult was it important well it's it very important you know when you get apart like Poirot and you suddenly become a huge hit you think ah could this be the beginning of the end of a career because that's how you're going to be known all the time and it was a concern and I've Sheila my wife and I discussed it quite a long time and we realized of course that the one thing in my favor was that he is I am in disguise and that's what I do I'm a character actor I've never been a matinee idol or a romantic lead not tall enough and I I don't have those looks I've always been a character actor and very very happy to be so because I really enjoy the people human nature and becoming other people that's what I like to do I like to change myself to become somebody else and fortunately when I got the role in nineteen well I was actually cast in 1987 I became an actor in 1969 and various roles I was already known for in on television with Freud and blot and Oppenheimer series and in the theatre I'd already done Iago in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre so I was already known and accepted as as one of our character actors if a bit serious a classical character actor and what was really fortunate for me was that in between the Poirot series I was offered roles like George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and other great roles that all my sons you mentioned long day's journey into night Tom Paine Kempinski separation etc etc and other great television roles because the the business knew what they wanted from me and therefore I was able to keep my if you like my character work continuing alongside this this wonderful character of Hercule Poirot at all at the same time and I think that has allowed me when off at the row when it used to come round again to be able to say yes because I done high-profile work in between and if you like that's what the business gave me was I may be remembered mostly for this role but alongside the öbut there'll be a paragraph hopefully of other roles as well so yes that's that was the great gift that I was given but looking back now you know when two weeks or so away from the end of the sit final series the thirteenth do you miss him oh yes I will miss him I will miss him and I'll also see him on ITV three quite a lot he won't see me but I'll see him and I will miss him he's been if you like he's like being a best friend I'll miss not not inhabiting him or being able to serve serve the the wonderful scripts that I've been given but I also celebrated its rather I'm not I will never allow myself to get too mournful about this because what a thing to have been allowed to do yeah climb Everest do you know a mountain climber who's climbed Everest and gone oh dear no I celebrate it so if that's the case how do you explain I think you once told me the or son-in-law explained what was the quality that really made poor oh so indispensable so special yeah with it I'm always asked what what did it what is it about Poirot what is it what is it about this this character in particular and I was discussing this at the fact with the family around the table and my son-in-law Elliot came up I think with a brilliant answer he said you know I think the thing about Poirot is that he is he's the great moral compass when you watch him and when you're with him watching him you feel everything's all right in the world you feel okay you don't feel threatened by him but you know that whatever he does finally will be right and that's important and in some way whether we're men or women there's an element of Poirot that everybody would like to have everything seems alright in the world he seems okay and he allows you the audience I hope even in the most dramatic moments to feel with him safe

Channel: BFIEvents

Views: 493,129

Keywords: BFI, David Suchet, Poirot, Hercule Poirot (Film Character), Dead Man's Folly (Book), Actor David Suchet, Agatha Christie, David Suchet Interview, Geoffrey Wansell, Book by Agatha Christie, Crime Fiction, detective fiction, Dodd, Mead and Company, Belgian detective, detective, fiction, Hercule, book, agatha, christie, Dead, Man, Folly

Id: hKpeBHIGxrw

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2013