Sherlock villain Andrew Scott: ‘I’m ready to be the good guy’

The actor is reprising his role as Hamlet on the West End stage
Great Dane: Andrew Scott with co-star Jessica Brown Findlay after the show
Dave Benett
Alistair Foster16 June 2017
The Weekender

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He's played Moriarty in Sherlock and Bond villain C in Spectre, but Andrew Scott says he’s ready to be the good guy.

The actor, 40, is reprising his role as Hamlet in the West End transfer of Robert Icke’s production.

He told the Standard: “They are all antagonistic characters. My vibe has always been to mix things up, so I’m now looking at lots of different kinds of roles and ones that are a bit closer to myself. Superheroes next? Who knows?”

That said, he hinted that Moriarty could return to the BBC series despite being killed off. “They haven’t drawn a line over whether there will be any more episodes,” he said.

“I genuinely don’t know — I’d always be open to coming back though.”

On stage: Andrew Scott on stage in Hamlet
Manuel Harlan

Scott said it was vital that young people see Shakespeare’s plays on the stage rather than just read them at school. He added: “The plays are like sheet music. Shakespeare’s been damaged by some teachers not covering the text properly.”

He said he only agreed to reprise the role if almost half the tickets were priced under £30. The production, which ran at the Almeida earlier this year, also stars Jessica Brown Findlay as Ophelia and Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude.

Each night, 300 of the 800 tickets will be available at the discount price. “It was one of the conditions of doing the transfer,” Scott said.

“We had this amazing young audience at the Almeida. We wanted to have 300 tickets each night for this production for under £30 — we wanted to open it up to everybody, so it’s not just an elitist West End show.

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"Shakespeare was a bit of a populist so we wanted it to be for everyone. We had to be tough on it, but you have to be tough on these kinds of things. If we don’t I just don’t think there will be a future in theatre audiences.”

At the press-night party at 9 Adam Street, Brown Findlay, 27, said she jumped at the chance to return.

She said: “You only get to play Ophelia once — I’ll take every performance so I can one day tell my grandkids I did it.”

She said of Icke’s modern production: “Shakespeare can sometimes seem inaccessible — when it’s covered in that dust of Victoriana and sung at you in baggy tights… you’re going to turn off even if you desperately want to love it.”

Icke said he had insisted on discounts. “One of the sadnesses for me about traditional audiences is that they can feel very safe, maybe a bit dead,” he said.

“I don’t have anything against these people, but when it’s all wealthy, middle-class white people… I prefer everything to be a mixture. We live in a metropolitan city. It’s good for us to have a whole different bunch of reactions from the audience.”

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