Clive OwenThe sex-symbol launched by Chancer talks straight about on-off love, Disney videos and lovemaking with the light on...(November 1999 issue of She [British magazine]) Interview by Sophie Davies, photographs by Derrick Santini/Camera Press Clive Owen's mobile phone lies in wait, a wrist-flick away from its stylishly
suited owner, who's talking animatedly. If it bleeps, it could indicated
that the engaging British actor's wife, Sarah Jane, has gone into labour.
The excitement about Number Two, as he affectionately terms his imminent
offspring, is palpable. That Owen should be married with a child - Hannah, aged 2 - let alone expecting a second baby (daughter Eve has since arrived) seems shocking. After all, he has made his name playing the kind of decadently sexy, single Jack-the-lad who'd think two nights was stretching it in the commitment stakes (think Stephen Crane, the car wheeler-dealer in ITV's hit TV show Chancer or TV's seedy but saucy private eye Sharman). Nine years after Chancer, Owen's still known as a heart-throb, and his career is undergoing a distinct resurgence. his recent film, Croupier, about a novelist sucked into casino culture, was critically acclaimed and the BBC has signed him up in a £500,000 deal to star as a blind private detective in new series Second Sight (the Beeb, for one, believes in his pulling power, pitching the series against the likes of A Touch Of Frost). Owen built his career playing archetypal sex symbols - lovable scoundrels with a wounded, childlike core hidden beneath a cynical exterior ("I'm quite male, but also quite sensitive - I'm not afraid of my feminine side," he says). His looks (jet-black hair, jutting cheekbones, olive-green yes, and a lanky 6ft 2in frame) helped. While Owen says he hates the tag of heart-throb, there's no denying he attracts female interest - numerous full-frontal nude Internet sites are testament to that. But while, predictably, the majority of viewers tuning in - and turning on - to Chancer were female, Owen also gained a male fan base who appreciated his roguish TV persona. "Blokes would come up to me and call me a "top geezer"," he recalls. He met his long-term partner, Sarah Jane Fenton, before Chancer, more than ten years ago while he was playing Romeo to her Juliet at London's Young Vic theatre. It was a surreally romantic introduction. "The cringiest, anyway," he laughs, confessing that he fell for her instantly. he admits the relationship suffered a wobbly start - "we've had times when we split up, little gaps for various reasons" - but Owen proposed about a year after the pair met. "I was one of those guys who used to run around saying, "I'm never getting married", but the last time we fell apart and came back together I just couldn't do it any more. I knew I would end up back with her." Fatherhood and family life are vitally important to Owen. This may be partly because of his own childhood. He and his four brothers were brought up by his mother and stepfather, a BR ticket clerk. Owen didn't meet his biological father - a country and western singer - until he was 19, and was fiercely protective about his past until the tabloids unearthed his father. He has said of the period: "It was an intense time, but I've come out the other end and learned a lot." Now, family comes first. He credits Sarah Jane, currently happy to be a full-time mum, as the one who has made his balancing act work. "She gives me the freedom to go and work and not feel guilty about it. I'm sure it helps that when I'm not working, I'm pretty much hands-on and there all the time." Owen spends his spare time watching videos with his daughter rather than partying on the acting circuit. "Jungle Book was great and I'm quite cool with Teletubbies. But Dumbo's had too long a run," he jokes. On screen, Owen's been paired with the likes of Miranda Richardson, Halle Berry, Samantha Janus, Alex Kingston and Gina McKee. So how does sarah Jane handle seeing him in intimate scenes? "She'd be a liar to say she's completely unfazed when she sees me romping around naked with another woman," he admits.
Owen has a reputation for taking on risqué parts. He's committed incest with his on-screen sister Saskia Reeves in the atmospheric Close My Eyes, played a hedonistic gay man persecuted in Nazi germany in the film of stage play Bent and a bisexual in the West End play Design For Living. Is there anything he wouldn't do? "I wouldn't make a porn film," he jokes. "But no, there's nothing I'm afraid of. I'm not a method actor, so I don't torture myself. I just regret the ones that weren't any good. There've been a few turkeys." Surprisingly, owen has always turned down adverts, although he once flirted with the idea of a lucrative beer commercial. "But Close My Eyes was on at the time, and they pulled out because they didn't want their Beer Man to shag his sister. How mad's that?" he chortles. owen laughs a lot - and it definitely adds to his appeal. It's almost his only perceptible "habit". Studying other people's habits was a necessity on Owen's latest project, Second Sight, and to research the part he met up with a partially-sighted man. "He taught me things you wouldn't think about, such as always letting people go ahead of you, and to put your hand out first then wait for the other person to shake it." The show is gripping - think Prime Suspect with a hint of ER and
a dash of The X-Files. Owen's character, Detective Inspector
Ross Tanner, develops an almost paranormal insight as his physical sight
deteriorates, while his is-it-or-isn't-it-platonic relationship with
deputy Catherine Tully (Claire Skinner of Life Is Sweet fame)
is reminiscent of Mulder and Scully. Living in gentrified Islington, Owen has come a long way from his working-class roots, but he always wanted to act, flunking school and hitting the dole for a few years before realising that he needed to go to RADA to make it happen. But while he's made his name playing yuppies and Londoners, he insists: "It's not me at all. A critic once said I could play middle-class angst standing on my head - but I'm actually an oik from Coventry." (Listen hard and there's still a faint echo of the Midlands buried under his southern accent.) Although Owen has been an adopted Londoner since 1984 - picking up a Southend "Essex girl" wife along the way - he hasn't forgotten his roots, and while owen has some celebrity actor friends, he moves mainly in a close pack of old friends. Fame famously freaked him out. ("I was very naive and immature - it sort of fucked me up a bit", he admits), and he notched up a "difficult" reputation - mainly for refusing to talk to the press. "I was only 24 and found it terrifying, as I'm actually quite shy. I'm much more relaxed about it all now," he confides. Ageing isn't phasing Owen either and he's revelling in his 30s (he's now 35), even though he's been playing 30-something roles for so long it's easy to assume he,s older. "Now I'll probably start getting those interesting 40-something parts," he muses.
While the dream lifestyle appeals, Owen claims to be happy to put on the brakes on his own fame. "I'm not prepared to do rubbish, when the quality of work I get here is just much better," he grimaces, obviously preferring to be over-good, but under-used in Blighty, than over-paid, over-sexed and over there. Future projects include teaming up with Helen Mirren in British movie Greenfingers, about a prison warder who introduces his inmates to gardening, but Owen plans to take a few months off first, just to be a dad. "I love having a family. I just feel very lucky, like it's all a little bit too good to be true." If the guy wasn't so nice - and talented - you's say he was a jammy chancer. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CLIVE OWEN Oasis or Blur The 80s or the 90s ........All
of the above thanks to Genevieve |
"Getting
your kit off is always difficult though," he says. "The average
jock goes, "Woah, you lucky bastard". But imagine if next
time you were making love to someone you don't even know that well,
you had to let 40 people watch." The pivotal sexual encounter in
Second Sight - under naked bulbs to maximize his character's
failing sight - has to be the most harshly-lit love scene of all time.
"How scary is that?" groans Owen. "They built this huge
see-through mattress bed which could be lit from underneath and spun
around."
Despite
earning himself a reputation as a bankable, quality lead actor across
theatre, prime-time TV and independent films (his favourite medium),
Owen has yet to crack Hollywood. His one big American film part - opposite
Halle Berry in Rich Man's Wife - made a swift exit from the US
top ten on its release, acknowledges Owen, who nevertheless milked the
star treatment while it lasted. "The home in the hills, the pool,
the convertible Mustang - I make no bones about it, I played it for
all it was worth," he confesses. "It's hugely attractive,
and who wouldn't want to be a movie star? But I was doing it with a
sense of humour."