Ripper Street: a chat with Matthew Macfadyen

A new interview with Matthew has been shared on the Bullz-Eye Blog. 

BE: I’ve asked some this people and been told, “I hate to say that I’ve made it even now, because I don’t want to jinx myself,” but was there a moment when you realized definitively, “Well, I’ve done it: I’m a full-time actor”?

MM: No, there was never any kind of “eureka!” moment. When I left drama school, I did three world tours with the theater, so I was just sort of…doing it. It’s lovely, and I love it. I don’t know what else I’d do. I mean, I really don’t know what else I’d do! [Laughs.] I don’t have any other strings for my bow! Thankfully, I’m doing okay…

BE: How was it for you to transition from theater into television, as far as the projects that weren’t literary adaptations?

MM: Oh, it was fine. Yeah, the first TV I did, I didn’t know what was going on, because we didn’t really have much TV training at drama school, really. So everybody…I mean, now it’s changed and they do, but you sort of learned on the job. My first job, actually, was a “Wuthering Heights” adaptation for BBC, and I sort of had to come through a gate. My first-ever scene, I had to come through this gate and sort of walk up, grunt at somebody, and…that was it. And they said, “Check the gate!” But, you know, what they meant was when they check the film in the camera. But for weeks and weeks I couldn’t pluck up the courage what on earth they meant, because I thought they meant the actual wooden gate! [Laughs.] So, yeah, that was terrible. But then you sort of get used to it.