The endlessly talented Graham McTavish that you know from The Hobbit, Outlander, Preacher and more spent countless hours honing his craft.
In the lead up to his appearances at Supanova Brisbane and Adelaide, the Scottish actor dished up some valuable advice to Supanova fans wanting to break into the industry.
‘The main [question] I get asked is, “I want to be actor, how should I go about it?” The answer I always give is, you have to absolutely need to do it,’ McTavish told Supanova.
‘I always say to people, “You need to want to do it, and if you do really want to do it, then actually practice doing it.” And by that, I don’t necessarily mean go to drama school – I didn’t go to drama school, I went to university and did a lot of acting there – but actually practice the craft of acting, so that you get experience doing it.’
‘In my case, I did a whole year of amateur dramatics between school and university and I did three years of amateur dramatics at university and then I became a professional. But even as a professional I was doing fringe theatre performances for no money, just so that I could be out there doing it, and I think the mistake that a lot of people make nowadays is that they wait for the work to come to them, but you have to be very proactive.’
‘I’ve always believed that the energy you put out in those sort of situations comes back to you – not necessarily in the way that you expect it to, but the very fact that you’re putting in that visible effort is hugely beneficial.’
Practice makes perfect, and the well-spoken, affable actor’s onscreen performances speak for themselves, especially his most recent endeavour in Preacher as the menacing Saint of Killers.
‘I was a huge fan of the comic, so when I got the opportunity to be in it, I was just over the moon,’ McTavish tells.
‘[Saint Of Killers] was my favourite character in the comic books; him and Herr Starr.’
‘Whenever you got to those bits in the comics, you just knew that something outrageous was about to happen and I think that’s what the audience comes to expect from both of those characters in the show.’
McTavish used his countless hours on the stage and behind the camera to help shape that character.
‘He’s great fun to play and it’s an interesting challenge in some ways because it requires a great deal of stillness and also a great deal of silence, and playing those two things is sometimes counter-intuitive to actors,’ he says.
‘I think that there’s always a temptation – and I notice this when people are starting out in their career – the temptation is to do too much, say too much.’
‘I always used to admire the fact that Clint Eastwood would take his scripts and remove lines from them because he appreciated the power of silence, because it leaves questions with the audience and it also allows the audience in. The audience are able to project onto those sort of people, and the Saint follows that kind of mould.’
Pic via AMC
