Wogan: Now & Then UKTV Gold February 23, 2006 Download Screencaps

Interviewed by Terry Wogan

Wogan: {...} as Prime Minister in Little Britain, he regularly has to fend off his amorous assistant Sebastian. Not bad for a lad that had to drink ten gallons of coffee before he finally got lucky in the old Gold Blend adverts. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Anthony Head.

Anthony walks out onto the stage.

Wogan: Nigel Havers, who was on, told us plenty about you. (Tony giggles at this.) Said your behaviour was appalling.

Anthony: That scalawag.

Wogan: That Manchild thing together.

Anthony: Oh, we had a good time. Oh, such fun.

Wogan: Old geezers chatting up young ones?

Anthony: Just...I...just put him and me and Ray Burdis and Don Warrington together, we just had fun.

Wogan: You have to though. Christopher Lee, a couple of weeks ago -

Anthony: He wasn't in this program.

Wogan: No, wasn’t he? No, he's been in everything else. Too tall for you, aye? But he said "You got to have fun." He felt that in today's movies, there's not enough fun.

Anthony: You can't take yourself too seriously, I think that's the point. If you take yourself too seriously, it's a downward spiral from there on.

Wogan: It is.

Anthony: I mean, yeah, have fun but I always - the great thing about the job is the fact that it's such a challenge and long may it be so because, you know if it ceased to be a challenge I might just get (fakes snoring) you know, bored.

Wogan: I know I nod off doing this. When you first - now do you mind me dragging up once again, you must never hear the end when you come back here but in America no one would have seen you on the coffee ads.

Anthony: Oh no no no. Because it ran there too.

Wogan: Oh did it?

Anthony: Yes, it ran for five years there as well.

Wogan: So you had to endure it there as well?

Anthony: Well, thank - somebody - some god.

Wogan: Made you a star.

Anthony: Well yeah, I mean you know the bottom line is, it gave me a reason to go over there and it gave me a reason to be seen over there. That's how I got an agent over there because it was a big success over there too.

Wogan: Yeah?

Anthony: Oh yeah.

Wogan: And we most recently seen you starring in Little Britain. Which I'm bound to say for a heterosexual man of the world, as a Prime Minister who’s being lusted after by his secretary. Whose been forcing him to dance with him and undoubtedly will end up -

Anthony: We did dance very well didn't we? To Careless Whisper. It was a marvelous moment.

Wogan: How did it happen that those two rascals dragged you into this?

Anthony: Um, that was well, they were Buffy fans and they sent me the script for the pilot and I mean I found the premise very funny. I thought it was great idea that this personal secretary being very personal. But I couldn't see beyond it being - there were three sketches and they were basically very much the same thing happened in each of them and I was thinking, "Well yeah, it's funny but I don't know how it's - how could this last for a series?" And then my agent who'd heard the radio series - I'd been in America when it was on and she said "You have to do it. You must do it." So I went along and met them. And they were just so lovely and so, they just really, really nice guys. Just so funny and I, of course, realized once we started to rehearse, that it's not just about the words, it's about the characterization and basically what you make of it. And they are absolutely brilliant, the characters that they create. I just - I was going to say well rounded but but that sounds rude in some way. But they just, they are, you know, they pay such attention to detail. They watch out for each other in each other's sketches and David, when Matt's doing something, David will come up and sort of whisper in his ear and then something will change, just little nuances. People always say how do I keep a straight face? But it's quite a serious business. They take it very seriously and you know when you've got a studio audience in, you've only got about sort of three takes, pretty much, on each sketch, otherwise they start to run over. So there’s pressure.

Wogan: Can we have a look at some of your fine work?

Anthony: And I apologize if I crack up when we see this...

Wogan: Here we go - Little Britain.

Little Britain clip from episode 1.01

Wogan: I think the phrase is your character doesn't have a very good gaydar.

Anthony: A very what?

Wogan: Gaydar.

Anthony: Gaydar? Oh no, I have absolutely no gaydar at all.

Wogan: Are we eventually going to see the pair of you become as a one?

Anthony: Well, I don't know to be honest. We've gone quite far. We've now, at the end of the third series, you've seen me - to my children's chagrin, you've seen me virtually naked in a posing pouch and feather duster. And the kids had to go to school after that as well. Really, it's not on. And I did say, there was a point when I was trying desperately to work out something saying, "Look, you know there's another sketch when David takes his clothes off," and I said, "You don’t want them to be too close together so perhaps I could sort of dress up as some gay iconic figure, maybe one of the YMCA lot - you know, the Village People" - and the producer sort of after I'd gone into this for some length, he said, "Have you got a problem with taking your clothes off?” "No, fine, carry on." So we did. But I armed meself with a feather duster. But I don't know where it will go, I mean we...we've kissed and I've kissed Gregory too and that's - I don't know. I hope it doesn't go any further.

Wogan: Don’t walk away because there's more searing personal questions -

Anthony: There's more?

Wogan: - to be asked. In the meantime, I know you're going to stay with us. There's going to be more from Anthony Head, in a moment.

commercial break

Wogan: Welcome back. Fans of an old geezer and the actor Anthony Head are in the right place. Now, you’re a huge star in the States thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Is that a surprise?

Anthony: Um, yeah. I mean, you know, if I'd wanted to - when I went over there, it was basically because stuff here, I mean I was being asked to do a lot of theatre and film and TV were just sort of - my agent was quoted - somebody said to her "This is a serious drama, we don't want people reaching for their coffee jar." There was that kind of -

Wogan: Type casting?

Anthony: Exactly. So it felt kind of logical to see if we could open the marketplace. As I say, it was a huge success out in America so I went. I read the script for Buffy, thought it was absolute genius and got it. And we were doing the pilot, which was a funny shoddy affair - it wasn't even a pilot, they - I mean nobody thought it would do anything and Joss Whedon, who wrote it, was directing the first time and they didn't believe in him at all. They just - they took the mickey out of him. There was one point when Joss and I and Sarah Michelle were standing backstage waiting to go to do something - we were just chatting and I said, "Is this going to be a success? I don't know. I can't tell" And he said "Oh yeah. Basically nobody gets what this is. The studio don't get it and the network don't get it and all the suits have no idea what this is. But gradually, the public out there will hook onto it and they'll spread word of mouth and it'll be worldwide." And you know? He was right.

Wogan: Very few people have that kind of gift to be able to predict what's going to happen on television.

Anthony: He is extraordinary.

Wogan: Because most of what happens, happens accident.

Anthony: He also, I mean the bottom line is he - you could always tell when a script had not been passed by Joss because it just didn't have his magic.

Wogan: I just wanted to - once again we’ve culled from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of your finer moments.

Anthony: Have ya?

Wogan: Here it is.

a clip from Buffy episode A New Man with Giles in demon guise

Wogan: How long did that take - how long did the makeup for that take?

Anthony: It was about five hours, but you know, me and the head makeup artist Tom Macintosh, we got on very well, and you know the bottom line is, it's a Zen experience you just kind of switch off. But it has to be said that character thang was the result of me going to Joss Whedon and saying that I was wondering - beginning to wonder what my part in this thing was, I don't remember what season it was but Giles just didn't figure particularly heavy and I was away from my family a lot and I was going, "You know, come on, can I do something else?" and he basically took that into Giles having a mid-life crisis and that was it, that was the expression of Giles's mid-life crisis.

Wogan: That part - surely given the slightly eccentric nature of the huge population of America, did it not attract a miniscule audience of loonies? Who would have thought that you were the devil himself?

Anthony: Not many that sort of came up to me and said "Are you the devil himself?" I did actually attract an enormous audience of librarians. I became the hero of librarians and in fact when I went - I was researching the part and I went to an American high school - went to an American high school library to sort of see how it worked and this very sweet librarian thanked me from the bottom of her heart and said, "Finally you're going to be able to speak for librarians" and I was like, You have no idea what this is about." But strangely, I ended up on the cover of the American Librarian Magazine and became a hero.

Wogan: Hey! A hero to librarians.

Anthony: Absolutely.

Wogan: And rightly so.

Anthony: But now I do tell them I blew up me library.

Wogan: Was it a strain for your family being separated?

Anthony: Yes, I mean it was - I mean when we originally talked about it, Sarah, my partner was, she said, "Look, I think this has to be done and I am prepared to stay" - and I mean she became a single mother pretty much. I was away for about eight and a half, nine months a year and I take my hat off to Sarah for being such a extraordinary, patient, loving woman.

Wogan: If we may take you on to your role as an impotent millionaire in Manchild, I want to show you a bit of this. You're coping here, not with impotence but with a mid-life crisis.

Manchild clip of James making the difficult decision to switch to pipe smoking

Wogan: How do you do that? Did you ever try to smoke a pipe?

Anthony: Personally?

Wogan: Yeah, I tried to smoke a pipe. It's impossible.

Anthony: I did try once, yeah.

Wogan: As a lad. You can’t keep it alight.

Anthony: It keeps going out.

(Both mimic the sucking action of trying to get a pipe going)

Wogan: Now, your latest gig is with Elton John.

Anthony: Yeah.

Wogan: Tell us.

Anthony: Oooo. It's basically about a rock n roll star. It's not based on Elton as the papers said and it's about a rock star - one of these sort of very high maintenance, very sort of like a peer of rock n roll, been in the game for quite a while touring for a long time. It's about the relationship between him and his manager -

Wogan: Is he gay?

Anthony: He is.

Wogan: And it's not based in any way on Elton John?

Anthony: No.

Wogan: We won't ask you to burst into song but just thank you for coming.

Anthony: Thank you.

Wogan: Thank you. Anthony Head.