British actor proves himself perfectly suited for everyman roles

Eddie Marsan as council case worker John May in Still Life.

Eddie Marsan is the sort of character actor whose face is familiar but his name doesn't quite ring a bell. He pops up everywhere - whether it's playing miserable gits in Mike Leigh's movies (Happy-Go-Lucky and Vera Drake), or supporting roles in blockbusters (including Sherlock Holmes, War Horse and Gangs of New York) or playing the Parkinson's-afflicted former boxer brother of the title character in the US television series, Ray Donovan.

Right now, he has two British movies out. He's in the lead as a repressed public servant in the surprisingly uplifting British movie, Still Life, written and directed by The Full Monty's producer, Uberto Pasolini, and has a supporting role in the drama X+Y.

The latter is based on the story of a boy on the autism spectrum (Asa Butterfield from Ender's Game) who heads from Britain to Taiwan for a maths Olympics - Marsan plays the manager of the UK team.

Marsan comes across as much happier than his dour screen characters. He's much funnier and a dapper dresser to boot - he arrives at our interview in a green suit and green felt hat to complement his eyes.

"The interesting thing is that I always play these characters who never make love consensually, they always wear terrible clothes and they have no style and no humour. Whereas actually I have a very beautiful wife and four children. I like my schmutter [clothes] and I like a joke," he laughs.

In Still Life, Marsan is John May, a buttoned-up South London council caseworker, who ensures that people who die alone have a proper burial. Made redundant, May is determined to give his one last case his full attention by going to great lengths to contact the deceased man's abandoned daughter (Joanne Froggatt from Downton Abbey) and they form a bond. John May is the everyman battling against the system.

"In European drama the protagonist quite often is the everyman who is subject to the universe, while in North American drama the individual conquers the universe. From early on in my career when I was doing theatre work I've always played everyman characters who inspire a collective response, like Reg in Vera Drake or even Scott, the driving instructor in Happy-Go-Lucky.

"These characters are always at the mercy of their surroundings.

"Sometimes I think character actors play people as they really are and leading actors play people as they wish to be."

Marsan grew up on an East London housing estate and is proud of his working class roots.

"The estates were actually full of life and it was a great place for me to grow up in ... but Margaret Thatcher sold all the estates and there's deemed to be something wrong with you if you live in social housing now."

Following the success of the first series of Ray Donovan Marsan and his family moved to Los Angeles.

So what's special about the series, which follows Liev Schreiber's titular character fixing the problems of Hollywood celebrities?

"It's about three working class brothers with a son-of-a-bitch dad [Jon Voight] who's just come out of prison. The family has been through terrible episodes with abusive priests and a sister who committed suicide. But it's really about very tough guys trying to deal with suffering and not being able to communicate it. So it's a fascinating drama."

Who: Eddie Marsan, English character actor.
What: Still Life and X+Y, at cinemas now.