Christian McKay Q&A

Christian McKay is a name not many people know of. Slowly but surely people who have seen Me and Orson Welles are at least aware of his existence in the acting world. After his performance, he made quite a loud statement that has already garnered a great amount of attention. So much that McKay already has been getting nominations, including a nod for Best Supporting Male from the Independent Spirit Awards. The English actor plays the arrogant and talented icon of a man in Richard Linklater’s latest directed feature. The film stars Zac Efron as Richard as he gets catapulted into the theater world for a week that changes his life.

I got to talk to McKay about the theater, what’s it like working with Richard Linklater and being the different forms of Welles. Not only is this man intelligent and hilarious but still was great enough to pull through the whole interview despite all of his coughing in between.

Melissa: So it’s been said that prior to you taking on the role of Welles in Me and Orson Welles that you’ve played him on stage. Can you give us a little more information on that?

Christian: Yes, well I did a little one-man show. The idea behind it was sort of an acting exercise where I’d play a real life person for the first time. When they mentioned Orson Welles, I couldn’t believe it. Because my generation, I think they remember him as the 350 pound man mountain. So I’d had urged to have played somebody like Richard Burton or Winston Churchill, who’s my great hero.

But it always kept coming back to Orson and so I started to read about him. I mean I always thought about him in (Citizen) Kane or The Third Man or something like that. So I started reading about him and then I started to fall in love with the old man (laughs). The reading becomes a kind of obsession, because you want to know everything about him.

So in the one-man show I play him up to be the age he was when he died, seventy, with a big fat suit, a beard and everything. So I haven’t played it for about a year and a half and suddenly I got the chance to do performances in New York. I was in New York doing another play with a Welsh company called Clwyd Theatr Cymru. What a mouthful that is, eh? (laughs)

Melissa: Yeah, totally (laughs).

Christian: The guy who was bringing it over from Wales to New York, he said, “Christian, you know I saw your one-man show. Will you revive it?” Then I told him I don’t know about that, but eventually I thought wouldn’t it be lovely to bring the old man home to America. And so the last performance, suddenly Richard Linklater, this director that I revered suddenly turned up. They told me he was making a film called Me and Orson Welles based on this historical fiction by Robert Kaplow called Me and Orson Welles. So like a complete idiot I stood there giving him names of other actors who could play Orson Welles, thinking there’s no way he could cast a totally unknown Englishman in the role who’s never made a film before. We started chatting and Richard flew me over to Austin for an old fashioned screen test which he said he never saw. Well I saw it and it shocked the life out of me, it seems so terribly theatrical on film, and that was my first session on film.

So if I carried on playing the way that I did onstage it would have been dreadful. So Richard had to patiently teach me how to act on film, and very patient he was too.

Melissa: Well obviously there’s quite a huge difference between the Welles that you played in the film compared to the one that you played onstage.

Christian: The only way it helped at all, it was more hindrance than help. The only way that helped was letting me have a little bit of a head start on research. Because obviously playing a real-life character I wanted to know as much as I possibly could on Orson.

Melissa: When it came to the research, is there something about him that you thought was fascinating other than the obviousness with his claim to fame with Citizen Kane?

Christian: Well, if you could have a ‘claim to fame’ that’s a pretty good one.

Melissa: Yeah, that’s for sure.

Christian: You know, the greatest film ever made. But I think the one thing I found quickly was that there was a great misconception of him. That his career was one of unfulfilled promise, that’s just not true. And also that he only made (Citizen) Kane and that after his career was downhill from there. Well, Citizen Kane is right to be one of the greatest films ever made, but in my opinion he made even greater films and that he did so independently of a studio system. He produced, directed, sometimes write and star in these. Surely he’s not a man who had failed but somebody who succeeded against all the odds really.

Melissa: Well he definitely lived one hell of a life so-to-speak when it came to his career in the entertainment world.

Christian: Well I think he lived several hell of lives. (laughs)

Melissa: Since this was your first film, what was the difference to you when it came to acting onstage compared to acting in front of the camera?

Christian: Well you have to learn about tailoring your performance to the different shots that are being used and almost courting the camera, having a relationship with the camera. There’s a common misconception I found in being acting on the film has to be smaller than acting on stage. That is not true, especially if your playing a larger-than-life theatrical animal like Orson Welles, that’s what I found. I think if you’ve seen the film, Melissa, it’s perhaps not a small performance. (laughs)

Melissa: Well you practically steal the show every time your on screen.

Christian: You know what I mean, its a big performance. It’s not brought down in any way for the camera. So Richard (Linklater) technically taught me how to achieve that. I’d speak to him everyday. I’ve got a thousand questions for him and he’d patiently answer them all and introduced me to marvelous films and directors I’ve never seen or heard of. He was my great film professor. If you have a film professor you should have one like Richard, you know. The world’s greatest director, I was pretty lucky.

Melissa: Obviously you’ve done plays and this is based on the whole production of the play Julius Caesar.

Christian: That’s right. Do you know that’s still considered one of the greatest productions of Shakespeare in American theater history?

Melissa: Oh yes, I know. Honestly before I saw the movie I wasn’t sure how much of it was fiction when it came to the actual production and how the play ended up being perceived by the general audience. I did some research after I saw the movie and it was this monster hit.

Christian: Yeah, you know it was the Phantom of the Opera of it’s day.

Melissa: Yeah, exactly. Doing all of that, going through the whole production of a play on screen and on stage, what part do you love the most about putting together a play? What just really gets at you that you love?

Christian: Of putting on a play? Well I think Orson thrived in chaos, and sometimes ideas can be coming to you. In the film that’s all based on fact, that the preview of the play was a disaster. That Orson had to pull it together and get it ready. From the preview performance being a disaster to the first performance, being one of the greatest successes to Broadway, that’s such a turn-around. That kind of magic can happen in the theater. I thought that the great thing in the film is that it’s almost letting you in on the magic trick both in the radio and in theatre.

You see, Orson Welles revolutionized the theatre and radio. When I was playing in New York, elderly patrons would come up to me and say that they remembered seeing their mothers and fathers put wet towels on the doors to stop the Martian race from coming in. They thought it was absolutely real. Of course then he goes onto Hollywood and makes the greatest movie ever made all before he was twenty-six years old which is an extraordinary, phenomenal achievement. That kind of magic can happen when you have a genius like Orson Welles.

Melissa: Okay, I’ve got a fun little last question. I heard, as far as everything going on set is concerned, a rumor that the actors spotted a ghost on set?

Christian: I believe it was Zac (Efron). There was a seat, on the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man which you don’t sit in. We always made sure that nobody sat in that seat, because that’s the seat where the ghost sits. People over the years, for the hundred years that the Gaiety has stood there, have seen this woman, this gray woman sitting there watching the shows. So out of respect for her, we always kept that seat empty. Then one day, Zac claims that he was walking around and then he said hello to somebody, thinking it was one of the crew or one of the cast. It wasn’t. It was the gray lady.

Melissa: Thank you very much Mr. McKay for your time. I really do appreciate it.

Chrisitan: That’s all right Melissa, lovely talking to you. I’m sorry I’ve been coughing my way through it.

Melissa: Oh no, its okay, you’ve been great.