After winning a loyal following as Miles in This Life, the actor escaped to America. Now he's back and taking on his biggest role in years.
Jack Davenport has a story about Pirates of the Caribbean, but is not sure that he should tell it. The actor played an admiral in three of the Disney blockbusters that starred Johnny Depp and the gist is that he still has not been on the theme park ride that was the film's source material. "I may tell you," he says through a grin. "Or not. You have got to be careful about biting the corporate hand that feeds you."
Not that Davenport seems to mind. We meet for coffee in New York, where the 49-year-old London-born actor has lived for years. He and his Scottish wife, Michelle Gomez, an actress best known for Green Wing, and their 12-year-old son, Harry, have an apartment in Manhattan. It is going well.
His voice booms — Davenport is a fantastic, gossipy, honest interviewee. He moved to America because he admits he was a "terrible cliché" who devoured US culture and assumed it was interesting out there. His son is "totally American". He is totally delighted — a man who went to the moon early, as Miles in This Life, before picking up a pension from Pirates and enjoying a comfy career on mostly smaller orbits since. The UK sitcom Coupling, The Talented Mr Ripley, the US series Smash and The Morning Show — he is an example of how to be successful, despite always being defined by one thing.
All of which is suitable conversation given Davenport's role in Ten Percent — the UK remake of the French sitcom Call My Agent!, the show that dealt with the moods and mishaps of actors. As in the original, there are cameos from the great and good poking fun at pomposity. Top of the bill? Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West.
It is Davenport's biggest role for years, playing Jonathan Nightingale, the de facto boss of the agency. For This Life fans, be still your heart as Miles, sorry, Davenport, once again walks the streets of London.
"I don't harbour grudges about the country I'm from," he says of his career. "It just worked out this way." But the well-spoken Davenport went to Cheltenham College public school and counts the former Tory MP Jonathan Aitken as an uncle — surely roles got more varied since he ditched our class-obsessed nation? "Undeniably."
"There are enough colonial overlords on my CV already," he continues. "But all actors have a certain bandwidth. There's only one Gary Oldman and Daniel Day-Lewis, then the rest of us. And most are not real shapeshifters. We do what we do. I know my place in the food chain. But I wanted to play Americans in America and nobody will ask me to do that from London. The move has allowed me to extend my — ha ha — range."
Self-deprecation suits Ten Percent. Like the French original, the plot is about an agency coping with a death. The UK take, though, is sadder. Less joie de vivre, more kitchen sink, largely thanks to the Blackadder stalwart Tim McInnerny's washed-up thesp — a character who, unlike Davenport, failed to navigate the downs of a cut-throat profession.
"Oh my God, it's devastating," Davenport says with a gasp about that storyline, which moved him so much he read it to his mother, Maria, an actress. Davenport's father, Nigel, who died in 2013, was also an actor. When he was a boy the family lived in Ibiza and had John Hurt as a house guest. That past is why he was so taken by John Morton's script for Ten Percent. Morton (W1A) is the master of the comic pause and mutter. "But there is a tenderness I was taken aback by," Davenport says. "It's easy to take the piss out of showbiz. Of course. But it does matter to people.
"Sometimes, when one gets asked to audition after 30 years in this business, you go, 'Watch my f***ing showreel!' But I understood why I had to audition here. If the writing is this good, they need to see if you can handle it."
What is his own auditioning story, most suitable for a Ten Percent plot? "I'll have to be unspecific," he says. "But there was one particularly drawn-out process where the job went away then, suddenly, they said, 'Can you fly to LA tomorrow?' I did. We did the scenes, but the big movie star wouldn't make eye contact. I'd flown 3,000 miles. We're doing a scene and are meant to be married, but she's not looking at me. So I pulled a grenade and lay on top of it. I thought, 'F*** it.' I said, 'Look at me!' I thought, '5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . Goodbye!' " And that was the end of that.
Will you say who the actress was? "No!" OK, tell me that Pirates story. "I suppose." He pauses. "I'm not sure I can. I'll come back to that."
This Life was a phenomenon. The first vivid look at graduates in a city, with the hopes, fears, flats, sex and drugs that came with it. For people of a certain age — 40 to, say, 65 — the names of lawyers and lovers still trip off the tongue: Miles, Anna, Egg, Milly and Warren. It was bacchanalian barristering, and when the show punched its way to an end after two series in 1997, Davenport's father told him he would never be in anything that generated that response again.
What did Davenport, just 24 at the time, think of that? "A bit of me was like, 'Don't rain on my parade.' But he was right. Still, This Life was before the internet — which is important. There is affinity between journalists and lawyers and one of the reasons it had momentum was because journalists thought it was about them. After series two there were pieces in broadsheets for weeks about if there would be a third series. Being pre-internet is critical, because there would have been opportunities to take potshots online. By the time we did the anniversary [in 2006] the internet existed and everyone said, 'I don't like it.' "
Will there be more? "No. They couldn't afford Andrew at this point." Lincoln, who played Egg, has had the busiest career post-This Life, with the zombie juggernaut Walking Dead. He should be a cameo in Ten Percent. "I know." I sense this has been mooted. Davenport goes quiet. "Maybe one day."
He took his agent for lunch when he got the part in Ten Percent and asked about lying. His agent said you cannot lie, but that "information management" is different. "Being an agent is like being in a caring profession," he says.
On the subject of information management, what is that Pirates story? "OK," Davenport says, eyes glowing. He is ready. A man who removed himself from the spotlight and so is more comfy with tittle-tattle than many of his peers. "When the first Pirates came out, Johnny, Keira, Orlando and me did a four-day junket," he starts. He means Depp, Knightley, Bloom. "Nobody was interested in talking to me, but all had to dutifully troop into my little suite.
"And these poor entertainment journalists think they're like Woodward and Bernstein, but I've had their question 250 times. They go, 'Have you been on the ride?' I go, 'I haven't — I'll get a chance at the premiere and I'm excited.' But by day four it's the Uruguayan press and they're lower on the food chain. I was punch-drunk and this poor woman asked if I'd been on the ride and I went, 'No, I haven't. How good can it be?' "
He gasps. He still remembers the footsteps thundering down the corridor, as a troupe of Disney PRs raced in to stop the interview. Davenport had no idea it was managed to such a degree. "Exhausted sarcasm does not play well," he ponders. "And part of the reason they are such a successful company is they have great message discipline." He laughs and, again, mentions not biting hands that feed him, but does not seem to care really.
On a loose-lipped roll, I ask about Bond. Surely an actor of his Britishness has been linked? "There was a teeny-weeny window where, pre-Daniel Craig, people said they'd seen my name on a list," he says, laughing. "But I saw Casino Royale, with its parkour, and thought, 'OK.' So, apparently, I was linked. But the idea, given what Daniel made of the role, is laughable."
I also read he was going to be in Titanic, but was eventually considered too young? "I've read that too," he scoffs. "And it's absolute bollocks."
Original or remake: which is best?
The Office
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's 2001-03 BBC mockumentary about a Slough paper company revolutionised the sitcom. Its combination of a cringeworthy main character, the banalities of work life and naturalistic style have inspired a generation of comedy writers — including the American reboot. Steve Carrell might be more likeable as Michael Scott than Ricky Gervais's David Brent, but the US show has too many pranks and not enough pure comedic cringe. And John Krasinski is no match for the master of nuance Martin Freeman. The original is much shorter too, at a concise 14 episodes rather than a sprawling 201.
Verdict: Original wins
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher's 2011 film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel is much slicker than the Swedish original, but it's too immaculate. The thriller lacks the raw edges of the Bafta-winning original. Rooney Mara and Noomi Rapace both play convincing computer hackers, but Rapace's turn in the Swedish version is sublime. And Daniel Craig is too confident for his part as the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist in the Fincher adaptation, too James Bond.
Verdict: Original wins
The Trapp Family/The Sound of Music
Before the classic film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, there was a German version, The Trapp Family, set to folk songs. It wasn't until a 1959 Broadway show that Rodgers and Hammerstein worked their magic and added the earworms that it is known for. The German film was fairly successful, but it wasn't lapped up as much as the Hollywood adaptation, which, adjusting for inflation, remains the sixth highest-grossing film.
Verdict: Remake wins
The Apprentice
The tasks on Donald Trump's original version were bigger and glitzier, but surely a better test of a candidate's worth is whether they can sell Scottish casseroles in Edinburgh, clothes at the Trafford Centre, or cheddar to the French? The American version had peculiar gimmicks, including immunity for winning project managers. With 16 series under his belt, Lord Sugar is still finding new business partners. What happened to the host of the American version?
Verdict: Remake wins
- By Jake Helm
Ten Percent is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Written by: Jonathan Dean
© The Times of London