Mark Gatiss - 'being next to Tom Cruise felt a bit like going to the Eiffel Tower'

Virgin Radio

22 May 2022, 22:12

The actor, writer and now director, tells us what he's been up to.

League of Gentlemen legend Mark Gatiss has appeared on The Graham Norton Show With Waitrose to talk about his upcoming projects - including his role in the forthcoming Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.

"It's all very top secret," he said of his part, "because it's not out until next year. I play something CIA-ish and it was great and lots of fun. Being next to Tom Cruise for a protracted period of time is like when you finally go to the Eiffel Tower or something. You're so used to seeing it on a postcard you can't quite believe that's it's actually there."

Graham asked Mark if he ever found it hard just switching off and acting, given his fine form writing drama and films and working behind the camera. Apparently not!

"Oh no," he said. "It's sometimes a tremendous relief being able to just close the door. A couple of years ago there was a heated debate going on between the producer and the director, and I just sort of quietly closed the door of my trailer and thought, 'I'm just gonna have a lie down'. I suppose the big thing about something like Mission Impossible is that the scale of it can be overwhelming. But if you have friends in the cast or on the crew, then that's always a sort of security blanket."

Something Mark was keen to talk about though was his appearance in new Richie Adams period drama The Road Dance. Set in the Outer Hebrides and adapted from a 2002 novel by Scottish author John MacKay, Mark says the film that has been made is "stunning" and "beautiful".

"It's what my dad would have called 'a woman's picture'," he laughed. "It's a very old fashioned melodrama, really, and it was an extraordinary experience making it, because we made it in the middle of the second lockdown. It was a proper escape. The theme of the film is quite grim, but there's just something about those distant islands. Being on the edge of the world..."

Mark also told us about his work directing the new play written by his friend and co-worker Steven Moffat, who alongside Mark, wrote Sherlock and Dracula for TV.

'The Unfriend takes a hugely entertaining and satirical look at middle-class England’s disastrous instinct always to appear nice'. Well, that's what the press release says, anyway.

Mark's fellow member of The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith stars, as does Sherlock's Amanda Abbington and the legendary Frances Barber. Tickets are available here.

"It's a very funny show," he says. "I'm very, very proud of it. I find the mathematics of the comedy so interesting, especially for the stage. Sometimes something is funny or not because someone is standing two foot further to the left. Sometimes it's as precise as that!"

Listen to The Graham Norton Radio Show every Saturday AND Sunday from 9:30 am on Virgin Radio or catch up on-demand here.