When you interview Malcolm McDowell, be prepared to bow.
Not because he is a famous actor with decades of impressive film, television and stage credits – most famously as Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange. No, McDowell, in fact, puts his interviewers at ease, including making sure they get a cup of his favourite tea. (English breakfast with milk.)
I spoke with the spry 81-year-old last August in St. John’s, Nfld., during production on the fourth season of the CBC comedy Son of a Critch. McDowell plays “Pops,” the crusty senior who lives with Mark Critch and his family on this comedy set in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
The bowing? It comes from bending over to pick up all the names McDowell drops. He has met them all; Kings, Queens, acting and directing royalty – even politicians who are seemingly on the way out.
The day I spoke with McDowell, several limos pulled up to the banquet hall location and out of one popped Justin Trudeau. While his government was teetering, Canada’s Prime Minister was still working the hustings, including the crowd gathered just down the street for the city’s annual regatta races.
McDowell spoke warmly of Trudeau, who he considered “so carefree.” That, of course, was then.
We went on to speak of his meetings with Margaret Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth II, why he thinks Shakespeare was a pseudonym for another writer, and the fourth season of Son of a Critch.
BILL BRIOUX: Did you ever meet Justin Trudeau’s father, also a prime minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau?
MALCOLM MCDOWELL: No, but I met his mother, Margaret. I knew her in London in the day.
BB: Is there more to that story Malcolm?
MM: No, no! I met her a few times and I liked her very much.
She was hanging out with the “in” crowd. She and Bianca Jagger, who was married to Mick at the time, came to see a play in the West End I was in called Entertaining Mr. Sloane, which was written by the brilliant Joe Orton. And they came and we had a party. I also went to a couple of little soirees with them. I always liked Margaret, I always found her really sweet, really nice and interesting.
BB: Did you ever meet The Queen?
MM: I did, but not like I met Margaret. The Queen never hung out with Bianca Jagger, smokin’ the odd spiffs. No, we would have been so lucky.
I met her at a play. She hated the theatre by the way, she wasn’t keen. Not like her predecessor, Elizabeth the First who, of course, went to see the world opening of most of Shakespeare’s plays.
BB: I know you never met her.
MM: No. The old Queen, Elizabeth the First, must have liked the theatre because she was the censor as well. That’s why I don’t believe that Shakespeare…
BB: …wrote all those plays?
MM: No. Because I think that was a pseudonym. I think it was probably the Earl of Oxford, who was one of her lovers and a very erudite man who traveled a lot in Italy and a lot of these stories are Italian – lets face it – Merchant of Venice; Romeo and Juliet, they go on.
Whoever wrote them, if we only had the sonnets, from the pen of William Shakespeare or whoever, you would say this is the finest writer in the English language. And that’s without the plays, because the sonnets are so magical.
BB: You’ve performed Shakespeare on stage…
MM: Yes, yes.
BB: When I briefly took theatre in high school, I always found it a struggle to memorize lines. Did that come easier for you?
MM: No. It’s bloody hard learning lines. It doesn’t get any easier. Actually, it gets more difficult. I never had a photographic memory.
BB: Let’s move on to Son of a Critch. I just spoke with one of your co-stars, Colton Gobbo [who plays Mark’s older brother Mike]. Did you know he does a pretty good Malcolm McDowell impression?
MM: Does he? I’d heard he was working on it. I love that boy. You know, this is a pretty good stepping stone for him. Young man, he’s 22 or 23. You go into a restaurant with him, the girls go weak in the knees.
BB: How old were you when you had your breakout role in [director Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 feature] “If….”?
MM: Yeah, I was at that same age.
BB: What advice would you give young Colton?
MM: Keep your feet on the ground. Because if you want to have a career, in our business, it’s one of peaks and valleys. But if you are pretty grounded and take the absolute glorification of some things with the attacks you get and find a middle ground, it will serve you. Just keep a level head. Don’t get too depressed when it sucks because, you know, a lot of it sucks. If you’re going to be a working actor, you’re going to do a pile of crap and that’s the truth.
BB: From what I understand, this is going to be a more emotional season. Young Mark [played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth] is now heading into high school.
MM: I mean, he’s the reason we’re here. And I remember when I first read it, and I talked to Mark and I said, “You better concentrate on finding this boy, because we live or die by his performance.” You have to get the best you can find and they did.
He’s a wonderful actor and what’s great is that Mark’s seen the potential in him and they’ve got these fantasy things to broaden his scope, which is so beautiful really. Sometimes we get to participate in these little tableaus which are really sweet.
I mean, he’s as tall as I am now. Next year, he’ll be looking down on me.
BB: This season you both finally get your own bedrooms.
MM: And of course Pop is lonely. He knocks on the wall and goes, “Hey, are you asleep yet?”
BB: Do you see doing more seasons?
MM: I don’t jump ahead with anything. When you’re 81, probably best not to be thinking about, You know…but if I’m able, and they still want me, I’ll do it. Because I love it. I think it’s a great role. I don’t have to carry it. I don’t have to be first in last out and I’m really into that. It’s such a beautiful part.
BB: Are you thinking of anyone when you’re playing pop?
MM: No. This one comes from the imagination, because [unlike all the other characters] it’s not based on a real person. It’s sort of nice that I don’t have any boundaries, you know?
Season 4 of Son of a Critch premieres Tuesday, January 7 on CBC and CBC Gem.
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