Acting royalty Anton Lesser tells us about a light bulb moment in Africa that steered him away from architecture and toward the stage – and thank goodness it did! This month he’s coming back to his home town to perform Dickens
Despite an incredible show reel, Anton Lesser seems to remain comfortably under the radar. He’s not harangued in the supermarket and goes about his life largely unfussed by fame. And yet, he’s appeared in shows that have attracted huge audiences and much critical acclaim such as Wolf Hall, Game of Thrones, Endeavour, The Crown, Andor, Pirates of the Caribbean and umpteen others.
He’s portrayed some of the most high profile characters on stage and voiced many audio books including most of Dickens’s novels for which he won a Talkie Award for his reading of Great Expectations. A national treasure one might say, not that Anton would see it that way. He’s just keen to make work that does some good and that gives people hope.
EPIPHANY MOMENT
The acting world almost missed out on Anton’s talent but thanks to an epiphany in Nigeria and a British Council film about the RSC, one of the UK’s now most respected actors headed to RADA. Anton says at Moseley Grammar school he was only really good at English so was always reading out loud in class. Drama was a natural progression and he remembers playing the title role in Hamlet, but acting didn’t feel like a career path at that time.
Unsure what he wanted to do, Anton headed to Liverpool University to study Architecture. While on a placement in an architect’s office in Nigeria, he watched a British Council film on the RSC and something in him shifted. Anton recalls: “It was a film essentially saying, this is what the RSC is about and an extraordinary thing happened. I knew I had to act. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life and I came back to go to drama school.”
RADA accepted Anton and he enjoyed a wonderful few years training followed by a glittering career during which he says he’s lucky to have never really been out of work. He says: “Out of the 21 in my class at RADA only three or four have continued acting. It can be pretty grim. I’m very lucky.”
ORCHESTRA OF THE SWAN
Relatively recently Anton has started working with the Orchestra of the Swan who we’ve featured in these pages previously. A group of highly talented musicians all from the Midlands and led by David Le Page, the Orchestra has transcended its Warwickshire roots performing all over the country and beyond. Anton was approached by the orchestra with an idea about combining live music with the spoken word which he jumped at. This month the orchestra and Anton are bringing Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to Town Hall.
Anton says: “Words and music is a kind of unique genre, neither pure reading, nor acting, but there’s this wonderful immediacy, that comes from the huge emotional impact the music has upon the words, and vice versa, and the interplay we actors enjoy with the musicians on-stage. Quite simply, it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done! I’m thrilled and delighted – as a Birmingham boy – to be performing in the actual place Dickens’s immortal tale began. The very thought gives me goosebumps!”
Uniquely the music is integral to the concert not slotted in between the action. The musicians heighten the suspense and emotion in a way the orchestra believes Dickens would approve of. Anton’s versatility, ability to break hearts and comedy makes him the perfect partner. It’s something that took Anton by surprise but he enjoys immensely. He says: “I’m lucky to have found this group of people – well they found me actually. They are a group of stunning musicians and David Le Page is magnificent. We have a lovely relationship – it’s very improvisational and we inspire each other.” He adds: “It’s a minimal set. For Dickens there’ll be chairs for the orchestra and lots of candles. It’ll be wonderful.”
DICKENS TO STAR WARS
The variety of Anton’s work is a testament to his versatility – from Dickens to Star Wars for instance is quite the leap. He says the writing on Andor was superb. “That sort of genre is usually very predictable but this was interesting and complex. For a big franchise like that it’s unusual.” Anton is also playing Garrick Ollivander in the Harry Potter series and has done many seasons in Stratford which he’s loved.
At this period in Anton’s career, he’s in the fortunate position of being able to be more choosey than an actor starting out. He says: “For 50 years I’ve been pretending and people respond so wonderfully. My aspiration is a continual one – to work and do things which have goodness coming through and make people feel hope. The bits of work I’m offered now I always ask myself, “do I want to be expressing this and is it uplifting?”