My Film Ireland magazine arrived today and I have scanned in the 3 interview pages.(Edit the full transcription of all 3 pages is below. Be sure to click on read more to see the full article! )

Acting Holy

Film Ireland

Although hesitant when discussing acting, his style, or his starring role in Brian Kirk’s Middletown, Matthew Macfayden [sic] still has a lot to say to Sheena Sweeney.

The first thing that springs to mind before meeting Matthew Macfadyen is what a good actor he is. His breakout role came when he played Agent Tom Quinn in the tv series Spooks, and later when New Zealander Brad McGann cast him as a weary war photographer alienated from his family in In My Father’s Den. Macfayden [sic] gave a further sample of his considerable depth and range before he was introduced to the world in Pride & Prejudice last year. And now, in grand over-the-top style, he is playing the role of Gabriel, a fundamentalist Northern Irish cleric preaching fire and brimstone, in Brian Kirk’s debut feature Middletown. The most striking thing about Macfayden [sic] in person is how different he looks from his screen self. He seems much larger in a lumbering kind of way, with floppy hair and a reddish hue to his nose. He has the accent of a public schoolboy and the charming manner of an Evelyn Waugh character, slightly bewildered by it all. My impression of him prior to our meeting is that he might be quite contrary and doesn’t like talking about acting. I am only half wrong. He sits back in his chair, and laughs often and easily. But he doesn’t like talking about anything to do with acting and is reluctant, in fact, to give a concrete answer to almost anything. Even a simple question about which actors he admires induces a lengthy obfuscation about how there are so many and such varied styles, before he eventually admits uncomfortably to liking Sean Penn and Meryl Streep. The reason for this, he confesses later, is for fear of “sounding like a dickhead”.