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July 2009 

Return to Table of Contents July 2009

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Interview: Jim Sturgess
Stayin’ Alive

On the list of dangerous jobs, the one Jim Sturgess has in Fifty Dead Men Walking would be right up there. Here he talks about playing a mole who infiltrated the IRA in the true-life story


By Mathieu Chantelois

Strolling into a hotel suite in Toronto, looking vaguely ’60s-ish with his fuzzy long hair, hip jeans, green T-shirt and navy jacket, Jim Sturgess could be any laidback 28-year-old. But he’s not. The night before, groupies screamed when he got out of a limo at the Toronto International Film Festival’s world premiere of Fifty Dead Men Walking, a political thriller written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Kari Skogland (The Stone Angel).

 

Thanks to Across the Universe, director Julie Taymor’s acclaimed big-screen musical based on Beatles songs, and 21, about a group of MIT students who attempt to beat the casinos by counting cards, Sturgess is a rising star in North America, but not so much in England, his own country.

 

“I lead a bit of a double life,” admits the actor, who still takes the bus when he’s in London, and says nobody there cares who he is. He also plays a man with a double life in Fifty Dead Men Walking, the real-life story of Northern Ireland’s Martin McGartland. At 22, the British recruited McGartland to infiltrate, and spy on, the Irish Republican Army. Ben Kingsley plays McGartland’s IRA handler, Fergus, and the film’s title refers to the 50 people McGartland thinks are alive today because of him.

 

Jim Sturgess as mole Martin McGartland in Fifty Dead Men Walking

Why did you choose this role?

“I thought it was an interesting subject, it was a great story, it was a thrilling ride and it was kind of dramatic as well. So I knew it was going to make a good film. Plus, it was wed with, like, a lot of political and religious content, and the struggles of something that I was aware of when I was younger, all the troubles in Belfast, living in England at the time. I was just looking, and hoping, for something that had a little bit more grit to it I suppose.”


What do you want people to get out of this film?

“I want people to look at the situation that went on in Belfast. The film shows there is no enemy and there is no hero. It’s not black and white; it’s just a lot of grey areas. There’s no right or wrong. It’s about a guy who doesn’t know what the right thing is. There’s a lot of point of view that comes into that sort of problem and I guess you can put that in any war or religious or political conflict.”


What was the toughest scene to shoot?

“God, there were so many. Every day I either was being tortured or interrogated or having to shag some girls up on the roof, it was never ending. I started taking boxing lessons, just getting into the whole idea of it. We spent a lot of time in Belfast before; I joined this boxing gym down there. I dislocated my shoulder pretty early on in the filming. And, of course, most of the [scenes] I’ve been arrested and my hands are tied behind my back and I had this really bad shoulder.”


Since you brought up shagging the girls on the roof, tell me about shooting that scene.

“You just have to giggle your way through it…. We drank some whisky and just went for it. It was very cold too, it was freezing.”

Let’s talk about the moustache.

“It was great.”

 

Was it your idea?

“It was, yes. When we first began the shoot, the first day, I had long hair and a bit of a beard…. So I went to the makeup lady and we drank a few glasses and started messing around and cutting my hair and shaving. So I said, ‘Leave the ’tash,’ and so she did.”


So it was real?

“Yes. I then turn up to set the next day… and the producers said, ‘You can’t look like that. We can’t have a leading man with a moustache the entire two hours of this movie.’ And I said, ‘Of course you can, we are going to bring it back.’”

 

And how was it to kiss a girl with that on your face?

“For me fine, would have to ask the girl what it was like for her.”

 

What’s with all these rumours about you starring in Spider-Man: The Musical?

“I was involved in the Julie Taymor movie Across the Universe. She asked me and Evan Rachel Wood to come help her with her new project, which is a Spider-Man Broadway musical. So we went and spent two weeks putting this show together with Julie and Bono from U2. We worked on the songs that they had written and did some stuff on the script that was being worked on. It was just a really fun and exciting thing to do. I thought, ‘Spider-Man: The Musical, that sounds like a terrible idea.’ But that is what Julie Taymor does, she loves that challenge and she’ll take something that is very commercial — like Spider-Man or the music of the Beatles — and she’ll turn it into the most phenomenal piece of work.”


Is it going to happen?

“It’s definitely happening as far as she’s definitely doing a Spider-Man musical.”


With you?

“She asked me if I will do it, it’s a timing thing. It’s not like making a film, it’s a year of your life and I’m not sure, other things might clash with it.”


Have you wanted to do a musical?

“No, that is why it’s so bizarre. I don’t really like musical theatre particularly. But I know that if I was ever in a musical, it would be with her; that is where she excels…. If you’re going to do a musical, you might as well be Spider-Man and sing some U2 songs while you do it.”


Editor’s Note: As of press time, open casting calls for the musical, now called Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, were underway. The show is scheduled to open on Broadway in February 2010.

 

Mathieu Chantelois is the editor of Famous Québec.

 


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