Jack Lowden: Star of ‘Slow Horses’ And New BBC Drama ‘The Gold’ Says Actors Should Act And Keep Political Opinions To Themselves
06.02.2023 - 20:15
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Jack Lowden, star of forthcoming TV mini-series The Gold, and Apple TV+ hit, Slow Horses, believes that actors should stick to what they know best and to not allow their political opinions to get in the way of their work.
As far as he’s concerned, ”you’re not an actor ” when “you’re sort of political.”
However, it’s crime, not politics, that’s at the center of the rollicking BBC One and Paramount+ six-part real-life heist thriller The Gold. The show is inspired by the imfafous Brinks Mat gold robbery of 1983 — on of Britain’s most storied crimes ever.
Lowden, partner in a film production company with Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird, Little Women) and Dominic Norris (Benediction), tells us that he’s not an actor with “a cause,” although he admits that he has played a lot of characters “that have a cause.” Lowden cites Ian Macdonald, the campaigning attorney he portrayed in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe: Mangrove.
“But that is absolutely not why I take jobs. It’s actually always the last thing that I think about because I think of myself as an actor and the privilege that I have is being allowed to piss about playing different people and to see what I can get away with convincing that I am,” he says, convincingly.
Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but people get annoyed when actors give their views, Lowden adds. He believes, passionately, “that actors should be actors, and actors should be where they are because of their acting, ability and skill.”
Lowden acknowledges that Macdonald was indeed an incredible man, but says he took the job in Small Axe: Mangrove first and foremost because he wanted to work with McQueen. “I think Steve is my favorite director and I had heard about the way he worked with actors. And I