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INTERVIEW TWO (back..)
Stewart: Welcome back to the second
interview with Billy, eh Billy I'd like to maybe go over college with
you, The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama,
Billy: Right.
Stewart: What was the course you applied
and successfully got onto?
Billy: It was a course called the Diploma and
Dramatic Art and there was another one at the same time called.. which
was the Bachelor of Arts basically it was like the degree course-
Stewart: Right,
Billy: -ours was just a diploma at that
point and I think the reason was was for it to be a degree course you
had to do so much written work there had to something at the end. And
because it was, the course that I was on was mainly or completely an acting
course, eh there wasn't enough written work for it to be thought of as
a degree, so but that was the reason I wanted to do it was that I wanted
to do as much acting as possible and not anything else where as the other
course had a lot of directing….eh making things -
Both: Puppets. [Erupts into laughter]
Billy: and masks but we- we- we eh did more
kind of em complete acting ya know
Stewart: What being a tree?
Billy: Aw yeah I was a tree, in fact in a play
that we did in first year I was actually a tree along with a few other
people and I started off this really outrageous kind of tree with like
all my fingers were branches and I was all stretched up and after a couple
of rehearsals I thought 'well its really hard to stand like this for a
while' so then I was just a trunk that'd been cut down and-
Stewart: [Laughing] And then a log.
Billy: A log, I basically lay on the floor
which was much easier-
Hell of a log
Billy: Yeah, and I- I was a monkey for a year
as well
[Both laughing]
Stewart: A monkey
Billy: A monkey yeah
Stewart: Monkey boy…
Billy: It was great…
[More laughter]
Stewart: So, I mean, was it quite intimidating
coz I mean, you hadn't really acted for 6 years you'd been doing, learning
a trade and then you got in unexpectedly so you really you maybe hadn't
had time to prepare yourself for the world you were getting into,
Billy: Yeah,
Stewart: Was it intimidating was it a kind
of a scary thing to get into?
Billy: Em it was sort of at first. I
remember the first week was incredibly scary coz there was a lot
of that sort of standing in a circle an' going in one by one and saying
something about yourself which ya know coming from a factory and making
eh books wasn't something that we did that much you know, but em, it was
actually great the people in my year were fantastic and a lot of people
who didn't have a huge theatre or acting background people like em Gordon
Brown who- who now works, he's an actor in highroad the soap up here and
Des Hamilton who's a casting director now people who, who even now are
still great friends you know and I see them alot and eh so, so we had
a really, really good time actually.
Stewart: And it was a three year course?
Billy: Yeah it was 3 years yeah, eh the first
year is mainly sort of working on voice and movement and eh reading a
lot, reading a lot of plays and poetry and stuff and just-
Stewart: Was that kind of frustrating from
this stand of view coz' you wanted to go and act,
Billy: Yeah
Stewart: You'd obviously seen Fame, you've
seen how it works,
Billy: [laughs] Yeah exactly,
Stewart: And there you are reading, reading
books and doing voices like me ma mo and you went 'oh I wanna get on that
stage' you know?
Billy: [laughing still] I was still being a Jedi Knight actually, I was walking around in my cloak. but eh, no eh, yeah you did actually by the end of the first year your really dying to do a play and you do do a play at the end of first year although not for an audience only for people in the college but eh and then second year you do a lot of plays so… so the actual set up of it is very good I think.
Stewart: Was it grounding, really for the
first year?
Billy: Yeah it was very much a grounding and
I wouldn't agree with everything that they do but em pretty much 90% I
think is a, is a good idea
Stewart: And did you do the full range of
plays? I mean did you do…. You did your Shakespeare's and comedies
and musicals..
Billy: Yeah,
Stewart: ..pantomimes and everything
Billy: Well before I started college I had
no interest in Shakespeare at all and by the time I left I've got a huge
love of Shakespeare now and I love to play in Shakespeare plays, em so
things like that, to be introduced to that and then have a love for the
rest of your life is a great thing eh, but we did do things like that
and very famous like Chekov plays which are great for actors you know,
an also comedies, farce comedies, musical, we did the Thru'penny opera
which was um a great production I thought which eh, I played eh, Mack
the knife in which is a great part, an amazing part for a actor, great
songs, great scenes and stuff…. yeah so we did a- a- a huge variation
of plays.
Stewart: And did you do any professional
work while you were at college or was that frowned upon?
Billy: Em it wasn- I- eh, ah, you know actually
thinking back I was just about to say it wasn't frowned upon but it [i]was[/i]
so that was almost a lie, I take it like you Stewart, yeah it was you
weren't supposed to do professional work unless you cleared it thru the
college and it was of a certain type n stuff and you didn't miss anything
they were scared about you missing you know.. . which at the time was
strange coz you thought 'but I'm actually going to do professional, em
work' and I think that's changed slightly now, em I think they've got
a better kind of grip on that but the only professional work that I really
did was kind of one line walk on parts on small TV things or things like
'Taggart' and 'Down Amongst the Big Boys' things like that, so just very
small things.
Stewart: How did that work, I mean….
Were you- how did you know of these jobs? I mean were they…
Billy: Em like 'Down Amongst the Big Boys'
eh which was a great drama I think that the BBC did with eh, Billy Connolly
what they used to do was if they had a big scene that needed a lot of
extras sometimes they would come up to the college with a bus and all
the students would get in and we'd all go there for forty or fifty pounds
a day which when you're a student is fantastic so we all arrive and it
was a pub scene so were all standing in the pub and the director needed
someone to do a line… eh, so he picked me and it was em, a great
scene actually with Gary Lewis, you know Gary Lewis?
Stewart: Yeah
Billy: Great actor, and eh, he- he was-
Stewart: That's the guy.. he was in Billy
Elliot
Billy: That's right he was -
Both:The father.
Billy: Yeah, well he was in this thing and he had to come in and ask for a drink he says 'I want a.. a half a cider and a whiskey' and he was all uptight and the barman gives him it and he- he downs it and he says 'look I'm sorry I don't have the money to pay for this' and the barman just comes out from behind the bar and takes his jacket off of him goes back and says 'well when you come back with the money you can get your jacket back' so I take off my jacket and throw it behind the bar and say 'well can have to large vodka's please'
Both:HEHEY!!!
[Both laugh]
Billy: Which em, ya know, was quite a good
first line on TV
Stewart: It's alright,
Billy: Yeah, so um, yeah, that was the first
sort of em professional- so things like that ya know things seem to happen
by chance.. I think, if you let them,
Stewart: Well, how was you- because you do
a degree show as well at the end of it you do- you do-
Billy: Yeah,
Stewart: See a lot of agents and how does
it work you do 3 pieces or something?
Billy: No you have, you have 3 minutes to do
whatever you want so you can come on and do a 3 minute monologue or you
and someone else can come on a do a scene and that means if it was a 2
minute scene you've lost a minute each
Stewart: Right,
Billy: So you then have 2 minutes, so you use
your 3 minutes however you want so we were rehearsing this but I got offered
a job, a theatre job doin' two plays in St. Andrews which meant.. eh,
that was gonna be playing when the diploma show was on, so it meant that
I couldn't do the diploma show
Stewart: Right,
Billy: So I never did it,
Stewart: Right,
Billy: Whe- whether that was a good or a bad
choice, it did mean that directors and casting directors and eh, agents
in London when- when the show goes to London they never got to see me
but it did mean that I went straight out and started working which was
important for me.
Stewart: I think we'll talk later Billy about
the work eh, you did do after college but for now thanks very much.
Billy: Eh thank you.
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