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TOBY JONES ON THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
Toby Jones plays one of the main roles in the big ITV period drama this Christmas, he is the villainous Daniel Quilp and we spoke to him recently about the role.
“Quilp is one of those rare characters who is irredeemably bad. He has lots of appalling, scheming, funny ways of being bad, but he is uniformly bad. He’s filthy, spiritually and physically. He doesn’t wash. He sleeps in his clothes. He’s a potential paedophile, borderline alcoholic and sometimes wife beater. The challenge for me is to try and make him entertainingly dreadful.
“Like every actor under the sun, I thought Quilp would be a challenge. The challenge here was to take someone who is so unattractive and unappealing and make him appealing, so that he can be at the opposite end of the see-saw to Nell. He’s fascinated by her goodness. He’s fascinated by purity and innocence because it is so far from what his life is. The thing about bad characters generally in drama is that they are the ones who move the story on. Good characters keep the story stable, while bad characters are creating problems that the story needs to solve. They are catalysts.
“When it came to the costume, I had a very clear image of Quilp, the silhouette of his shape. We found this great hat that was quite crumpled, as he is quite physically crumpled, and the tails of his jacket are like an actual tail. We wanted to suggest that he is from the sewer. It took about 40 minutes of painting me in make-up, so that my normal fresh-faced good looks deteriorate into a state of blotchy, veiny rottenness. There is one whole side of him that is distorted… he has a hunched back and one side of him seems to be wounded. That’s the thing about playing these characters – Dickens gives you such a strong shape of the character. That’s why people call characters ‘Dickensian’ – it’s all about trying to keep the characters belonging to a world where other people can relate to them. To try and keep them belonging to the world of the viewer rather than creating a cartoon. I’ve tried to inject some humanity into Quilp. Not remorse, but some humanity to him that he keeps very private.
“It’s a mystery in the book why he is so bad. Dickens doesn’t really explain it, so you have to come up with your own explanations. I think people get used to being treated a certain way and they retaliate in kind - abuse is cyclical. There is a control freak in him when it comes to dealing with money, even though he lives in squalid circumstances. It’s not like he’s using the money - it’s more about having money and being in control of money.
“I think when people talk about a classic villain or a classic series or a classic book, it suggests that what you are dealing with is something that moves beyond generations and stands the test of time. Of all the Dickens books, I knew the least about The Old Curiosity Shop before I read it. It’s an interesting book because it feels like an early Dickens. It’s not one of those with a labyrinthine plot; it’s almost like a chase story. It’s an honour to be associated with Dickens because he happens to be one of my favourite authors. I haven’t seen other versions of The Old Curiosity Shop but everyone talks about them being quite sweet, that they emphasise the Nell side of the story. I think this one emphasises more the contemporary, relevant aspects of the book, like debt and addiction and abuse. All those things that we usually love watching in contemporary drama on television.”
The Old Curiosity Shop is on ITV1 26 December 2007 @ 9.00pm
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