David Harewood - Birmingham Living

David Harewood talks to Shelley Carter about his rise from restless pupil to acting royalty and how being a Bluenose is in his bones

David Harewood was a self-confessed ‘pain in the arse’ at school. Sat at the back of the class at Washwood Heath Comprehensive he was uninspired, fidgety and disinterested, but on the sports field and on stage it was a different story. “Sport was my thing and I did a few school plays. I had no idea what to do when I left school and just before the end of term one of my teachers suggested acting. It sounded as good as anything,” he says. It turned out to be a genius bit of careers advice. With an enviable CV spanning 30 years and an MBE for services to drama, David’s career has been hugely varied including stage roles such as Othello, Martin Luther King in The Mountaintop and Lord Asriel in His Dark Materials. On screen highlights include the ground breaking Oscar-nominated Blood Diamond and Golden Globe winning smash Homeland.

BIRMINGHAM’S LOSS

David auditioned for Birmingham Youth Theatre who turned him down. Undeterred, the budding thespian headed to the National Youth Theatre who recognised his talent and offered him a place on their prestigious six-week course. “It was really exciting. It was the first time I’d been surrounded by like-minded nutters and I had a whale of a time. My parents were worried. There were no black actors on TV and it just seemed like a crazy thing to do, but they could see I was passionate about it and supported me.” David came back to Brum after his first stint at NYT and worked at Albert’s Wine Bar in Dale End which was ‘fantastic’. Even there the punters kept urging him to get into acting. Back at NYT the following year, one of the tutors suggested auditioning for RADA which he did successfully. “All the other students were discussing Dostoyevsky and the like. I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about.” He soon settled in and had a ball.

AMERICAN DREAM

Having worked pretty steadily after RADA, David found he wasn’t getting the screen roles he had hoped for and turned to the US. A swathe of British actors seem to be heading across the pond and taking on some fantastic roles with Homeland being the obvious example. Harewood and fellow Brits Damian Lewis and Claire Danes enjoyed huge success on the show. “On stage I’d had some fantastic leading roles, but that success hadn’t transferred to TV here. In America there’s more choice and more three-dimensional roles.” Homeland was David’s first job in the US which isn’t a bad start. “Having the other Brits around was great. It might have been unsettling otherwise. Damian was great fun. We’d just go off and talk about football or something.” Despite having worked in Britain for 30 years, it’s Homeland that David is most famous for. The success of the show has its down sides though like being papped on holiday with his wife and daughters which was a bit of a shock. “Yes that was weird. We did get to do amazing stuff on Homeland though, like going to the Golden Globes and the Emmys. There were actual movie stars walking around. You know Charlize Theron was within touching distance. Obviously I didn’t, but I could have!” Despite being star struck David managed to hold it together until he saw one of his heroes Sidney Poitier. “I lost it. I leapt from my chair, ran over and introduced myself. He had no idea who I was – probably the cleaner, but it didn’t matter. I just had to tell him how I felt.”

HOMETOWN CHANGES

When he’s in the UK David lives in South London but comes back to Brum as often as he can to see his parents and has noticed some big changes in the city. “I love the buildings and some of the changes have definitely improved the place, but not all of them. I grew up in Birmingham at a time that felt diverse, cosmopolitan and musically rich. There were a few numpty skinheads around, but not overwhelmingly. The city seems to have become more polarised which is a real shame.” David’s connection to the city is heightened by his unconditional love of the Blues. “Up the Blues! Up the Blues!” he boomed when asked about the team’s heroic escape from relegation last season. “It was just an amazing feeling. I was on cloud nine. Being a Bluenose is in the bones,” he added. The next half of the year looks busy for David. He’s about to start filming Tulip Fever written by Deborah Moggach and adapted by Sir Tom Stoppard with Judi Dench, but more exciting for him, Christoph Waltz who was in Django Unchained. “I cannot wait to meet Christoph. He is brilliant. I just hope he’s shooting at the same time as me. I’d like to watch and learn.” David is also working on Grimsby which is a film by Sacha Baron Cohen. “I met Sacha in LA and he was surprised I was British. I get that all the time. I worked in this country for 30 years and no one remembers! It just shows the power and success of Homeland.”

INFAMOUS BLUES BATTLE CRY….

David’s rousing messages tweeted before Blues escaped relegation made the front pages: ‘Today. We call on the spirit of Latchford, Francis and Burns. Of Dugarry and all who have worn the Blue and White! Keep Right On Lads!’ ‘As we gaze into the Abyss and darkness threatens to eat us up, remember the City, remember the Fans! Until the End Of the Road Lads!’

Lorraine Burroughs is becoming a regular on our TV screens, making a name for herself in gritty dramas and challenging roles. With critical acclaim and serious recognition from the industry under her belt, we catch up with the Birmingham-born actress as LA studios beckon

There is a certain lack of self-consciousness to Lorraine Burroughs. The 32-year-old actress is chatty, friendly, open and happy to fill in the gaps in the story of her life. This is just as well, as my initial research into her life raised plenty of questions and not many answers. Burroughs has spent plenty of time on stage and in studios, but not so much time with journalists – well not yet, anyway. The budding star is coming to the attention of ever-greater audiences and is being recognised as a formidable acting talent by critics, and those within the industry. She’s about to appear on our screens in the second series of Top Boy, so we thought we’d grab an interview before the pack descends.

FRESH MEAT

Burroughs grew up in King’s Heath and was a pupil at Bishop Challoner school. She was an impressive athlete and won gold in the ‘Global Guts’ tournament. But even then, while everyone expected her to go into sport, Burroughs was dreaming of becoming an actress. “I remember doing all these interviews and being asked what I wanted to do, and would say ‘I want to be an actress, not an athlete’.”

Burroughs began serious acting when she was 14, joining an acting group at Central Television Studios. It was an ideal training ground for the teenager. “It put me into a professional environment at a young age. We would get to perform scripts of TV shows that were coming up, and to meet people in the business,” she says.

Burroughs lived in Stratford Upon Avon for a period, soaking up the works of The Bard, until she broke into the acting fraternity proper by joining the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Burrough’s RADA contemporaries included Ben Wishaw and Jonas Armstrong. “I had a great time. It was tough, really tough. Relentless, really. But there were great people there from a real mixture of backgrounds.”

The third year students are always targets for agents and casting team,and Burroughs was snapped up. She gained a role on the set of the BBC Midlands-based drama Doctors, and life as a full-time actor began. “When you’re in the third year, you put on a number of plays and the casting directors come to see the ‘fresh meat’. I was lucky, as I got snapped up straight away, whereas others are left to perform in the final plays.”

MOUNTAIN

Gaining a steady pipeline of work didn’t come easy, and Burroughs did her fair share of admin and waitressing jobs between graduating from RADA in 2003 and finding enough acting work to keep her going. “It’s only in the last four years or so that there’s been enough to keep me going. When I first started, I didn’t know how to handle money. It’s not something they teach you. You get these blocks of money and don’t know how long it’s going to last for. I’d get some money and it’d be ‘let’s go to Italy!’ – I had a lot to learn.”

A major turning point Burroughs’ career came in 2009, when she landed a stage role in the play Mountain Top, set on the night before civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated. She played opposite fellow Brummie David Harewood, now famed for his role as David Estes in Homeland. Burroughs played flirtatious motel chamber maid Camae, who engages in repartee with Harewood’s Dr King. “We had an absolute blast and he’s one of my best friends still. I was learning stuff from him and he said he was learning from me. I think we took the play to a level which people didn’t expect it to have.” Indeed, the critics agreed, and Burroughs was nominated for an Olivier Award.

ICE CREAM

Since Mountain Top, the phone has been ringing more regularly, and Burroughs has been involved in a number of gritty TV dramas. She played ‘DCI Winston’ in several series of DCI Banks and has also appeared in two series of Lip Service. Other television credits include roles in Spooks, Identity, New Tricks and the critically acclaimed The Shadow Line.

In 2011, Burroughs’ athletic skills came into use when she played the role of sprinter Trix in the film Fast Girls. More recently, she played the lead character ‘Serena’ in the TV drama ‘The Ice Cream Girls’. The drama is based on Dorothy Koomson’s 2010 novel of the same name, which followed two teenage girls from very different backgrounds who, in the summer of 1995, were accused of murdering their schoolteacher. Burroughs played opposite Jodhi May and Martin Compston.

Burroughs likes to get into the role by imagining she is the character while she goes about her everyday life. She might be in the supermarket pretending she is someone else. “I don’t have a set method but I do spend a lot of time preparing. I will be in the supermarket pretending to be the character and people won’t know.”

STATES

Burroughs regularly heads out to the States to undergo auditions. She has the same US agent as Harewood, and hopes to follow in his footsteps and become a household name there, too. It sounds exciting but is far from glamorous, she says. “It’s much harder out there (in the US). There’s way more competition because everyone wants to become an actor. You have to queue for ages to audition, and by the time you get in there you’re tired. I get quite annoyed by it.”

ECLECTIC MIX

In the meantime, there’s plenty going on in the UK. Burroughs’ next televised role is in the second series of the critically acclaimed Channel 4 drama Top Boy. The programme looks at the lives of teens and youths living on a London council estate, doing everything they can to survive and eventually striving for redemption. Burroughs plays the lead female role in the new series, opposite Ashley Walters. She is Walters’ lawyer, and ends up starting a relationship with him while trying to help him turn his life around. “I like to play a variety of parts. The most important thing is that they are strong characters. I have played Juliet at The Globe and crazy butch lesbians, too – it’s quite an eclectic mix.”