Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole In My Heart
Steven Mackintosh plays Jeremy
Sitting in the study of his London home, his prized collection of vinyl records lining the walls around him, Steven Mackintosh says that he can quite easily understand how a passion for shopping could slip over into addiction.
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And the actor, who plays Nathalie's (Sally Hawkins) husband,
Jeremy, in ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ TWO's Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole In My Heart, needs
no convincing that it can affect anyone, regardless of their age or sex.
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"I think men do it as well but with men it tends to be called collecting," he smiles. "I definitely have a weakness for that and I know loads of blokes have.
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"Mine is buying records – I've had a few eBay moments
and I've spent a lot of money on them, but I'm able to justify it by calling
it collecting."
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For men, says the softly spoken actor, it's often not just about buying something but also about "getting the whole set".
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"I think that when that goes to another level, it can take over men's lives – just like shopping takes over Nathalie's life," he says. "I quite often have to stop and think to myself, 'I am actually listening to these records, aren't I? I'm not just buying them for the sake of it?'
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"So I can really relate to this story. I feel I've got the capacity to cross that line somewhere. If some awful emotional trauma took place, if something happened to me, just a little flick of the switch, I could see myself going down that route."
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Fortunately, the Cambridge-born father of two has his vinyl habit firmly under control, but he was delighted to get his teeth into the role of Jeremy, an intelligent, successful GP, who nonetheless struggles to understand what his wife is going through.
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"The consequences of drug and alcohol addiction for people's relationships and lives have been dealt with quite a lot in drama, but I think this is the first time shopping addiction has been dealt with as such," he says.
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"What this film does really well is explore how difficult it is for people to come to terms with the idea of shopping addiction, to take it seriously.
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"I think it's often considered that these people are
just spending too much and that the answer is quite simple: just pull the
purse strings in a bit; we're all capable of that. That's definitely
how Jeremy feels at the outset.
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"But the interesting thing is that he ends
up going on as much of a journey as Nathalie."
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As Nathalie's addiction takes hold, Jeremy's early denial about her shopping binges gives way to bewilderment and, eventually, anger.
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"When he does realise it's a problem, he decides that it's Nathalie's friend, Maya [Daniela Nardini], who's responsible for it.
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"Nathalie's relationship with Maya is quite clearly
a negative one and a very dangerous one because Nathalie's so fragile and
there's this friend who has the cash to keep buying. So Jeremy convinces
himself that if Nathalie stops seeing Maya, she'll be fine.
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"What he doesn't see is that it runs so much deeper than that. Nathalie just desperately wants to be heard but people aren't really listening to her – and that goes for Jeremy, too. But then quite clearly a line is crossed that I think he is just not prepared for."
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Steven, 39, has been acting for more than 25 years. "I just kind of fell into it," he laughs. "I did a couple of things as a child and then I got a part when I was about 15 in The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole and suddenly I was working full time."
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The actor will shortly appear on the big screen opposite Iain Glen in Small Engine
Repair, a heart-warming film set in rural Ireland, and in ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ ONE's The
Amazing Mrs Pritchard as the husband of an unlikely Prime Minister, played by Jane
Horrocks.
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But though he now claims to feel like a veteran, he says
he's relished the rare chance to improvise on Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole
In My Heart.
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"It's an interesting way of working because you feel you're delving inside yourself that bit further. I think it worked particularly well for Jeremy and Nathalie's relationship because there's an uncomfortable element in many of their scenes together," he says.
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"Jeremy finds it quite difficult to express himself and there's always a tension between them because neither knows quite what to say next – and, when you're improvising, you literally don't know what's going to be said next.
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"When you leave that element open on the day, things can pop out that you just didn't expect. I like that spontaneity and I like being able to surprise myself and feel like something's possible that I hadn't imagined before."
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