English actor Simon Callow has confessed to never having been to a rock concert despite portraying an ageing rock star in an upcoming film.
The 75-year-old will play the role of washed up musician Richard O’Keefe in comedy-horror movie Murder Ballads: How To Make It In Rock ‘N’ Roll, which follows the story of a fictional band who will do anything to make it to the top.
The actor, best known for the character Gareth in Four Weddings And A Funeral, described the role as “virgin territory”.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Callow said: “He’s obviously been quite a player and all the rest of it, and he’s reminiscing about his past and his advice to the rock world about how to succeed is completely incoherent.
“I couldn’t resist playing it. I’ve never played anything remotely like this.
“I’ve never been to a rock concert in my life, but the movie presents this crazy world. I don’t know, is it true or not? I don’t know it sounds credible to me.
“It’s brilliantly written. You just look at it as an actor and you just know how to do it and where to take it because, for me, it’s a virgin territory.”
Callow also portrayed Austrian composer Mozart in Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus at the National Theatre in 1979.
He added: “That was an incredible sort of a role to have, to play Mozart, because I don’t think there’d ever been a stage presentation of Mozart before, and he was an extraordinary, hyped figure, and he wasn’t unlike a rock musician, I suppose, in that sense.
“On the other hand, he wasn’t getting stoned every night and losing parts of his brain.”
Callow is also known for playing The Reverend Mr Beebe alongside the late Dame Maggie Smith in A Room With A View, and for portraying Tilney in Shakespeare In Love.
Speaking about Dame Maggie, he said: “She’s one of the most gracious and exquisite actresses who ever lived.
“I then later directed her, which was pretty daring of me. Very terrifying indeed. But she was the greatest artist.”
Callow won the Olivier Award for best director of a musical in 1992 for Carmen Jones and has received two Bafta nominations for best supporting actor.
