#when will james mcardle come home from the war

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Get you someone who looks at you the way James McArdle looks at all of his fictional romantic partners <3

[mattressmacd]

Shows #9 and #11: ANGELS IN AMERICA Don’t be fooled. If you think that just because you experienced the National Theatre’s production of Tony Kushner’s masterwork, ANGELS IN AMERICA, when it was screened via live broadcast from London, you would be WRONG. While you may have enjoyed it on the big screen, nothing could prepare you for what it’s like to see it live—in a real-life theatre breathing the same air as this magnificent ensemble of actors. So, if you saw the screening and think there’s no need to see it live, change your thinking and get yourselves a ticket while you still can. Marianne Elliott’s revival may not have the sophisticated technical design that made her Tony-winning productions of WAR HORSE and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME that made them a feast for the eyes as well as the soul; but what we get is a finely-tuned ensemble richly performing some of the most complex characters created for the stage. Elliott’s work with actors was greatly evident even in WAR HORSE and CURIOUS INCIDENT, but she’s outdone herself here. The entire London cast has crossed the Atlantic for this limited Broadway engagement, with the exception of Russell Tovey whom has been replaced by an outstanding Lee Pace (it should be said that Tovey was the first Joe I’ve found so sympathetically played, and I was initially disappointed that he wouldn’t reprise his performance—but Pace is even more believable than Tovey was, and turns in an emotionally naked performance that stuns). Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, who were the headliners in London, are here—each turning in towering performances that have only deepened in the months they’ve inhabited these roles, and (especially in Garfield’s case) benefit from being seen onstage rather than on a giant screen. There were complaints about the broadness of Garfield’s portrayal of Prior Walter, but he is superb here—turning in one of the finest stage performances I have ever seen (and let’s not forget that less than a week ago I saw Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalf sublimely play THREE TALL WOMEN). Lane’s Roy Cohn is a ferocious monster. There’s no question he lands the humor perfectly (and as one of the Prior heralds he is hilarious), but those who have only experienced musical comedy Nathan Lane will be surprised at the complexity of the performance he gives. In PERESTROIKA, he is an absolute marvel. The rest of the ensemble impresses even more than they did in the screening. Denise Gough, as Harper, proves that it IS possible to be better than Mary-Louise Parker in the role. Her performance is riveting throughout, but never better than in her moments opposite Garfield and in her final monologue at the end of PERESTROIKA. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett’s Belize continues to be spectacular, and Amanda Lawrence a terrific Angel, et al (in an interesting twist, Lawrence was absent for the second part; in her place I was treated to a very different, but equally brilliant Beth Malone—the Tony-nominated star of FUN HOME). Two performers who did not impress me as much in the screening but who blew me away live were Susan Brown and James McArdle as Hannah and Louis, respectively. Brown’s track is likely the hardest in the show, back and forth between sexes and the fantastical versus realistic. She’s a force. Her Hannah is every bit as astounding as Streep’s. McArdle takes a character that comes across as ridiculously overbearing in some performances as almost endearing, and he manages to beautifully balance his performance so that even when he does awful things you still feel for him. If the spare design seems confusing, you’re not alone. If Ian McNeil’s set is meant to evoke the crumbling of America as millennium approaches, it certainly does so—but when scene locations go from sparse to fully realized with no explanation, it tends to baffle. Still, it’s wonderful to see the Angel so differently rendered than the original production. It is theatricality at its finest. But who cares? With performances as deeply transformative as the ones given by this ensemble, they need little more than the open space they’re given to deliver Kushner’s immensely complex words. Their ability to make a 25 year old play feel as fresh as it did when it first opened is a magnificent achievement.

[mcarfield]

James and his Mary Queen of Scots buddy Jack Lowden attend the press night after party for 'Aristocrats' at The Hospital Club on August 9, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

[mcarfield]

Me listening to this new James McArdle podcast interview: HIS VOICE IS SO BEAUTIFUL HELP GOD @earlgreytea68 :  awwwww I can't help, sorry I now have to disappear to write my words boo Me: yes you should do that leave me here to die it's fine

MORE THOUGHTS i’m just going to have a freakout on you guys here hi

- omfg James dying to get back to Glasgow, bless his heart <3

- he sounds so exhausted oh my gosh my sweet son. And the shock at how bad Manhattan smells in the summer, haha. oh James.

- omg! he had an emergency operation over the break between London/NYC!!!! HE THOUGHT HE WASN’T GONNA GET TO BROADWAY OMG THIS DRAMA

- His care and attention for the Jewish aspects, like, he’s talked about that before, but he’s so — “you knew in new york they were out for blood if you didn’t” 

- AHA. HERE WE GO. HIM TALKING ABOUT HOW YOU’RE ON SHOW CONSTANTLY IN NEW YORK. “Everything was held at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, all I can remember is being at the Marriott and shaking — these botox faces “ — this actually is hilarious to me because I competed in a national talent competition (and won, no humblebrag) when I was in high school and every year it was in the Marriott Marquis and it was such a big deal and so I’ve always associated that hotel with the hoity toity Broadway shenanigans ad I love this.

- NO BUT REALLY JAMES MCARDLE, WE ALREADY KNEW YOU WERE CONSTANTLY EXHAUSTED BY HAVING TO DO THE RED CARPET. 

[Me: omg he's talking about how much he hated doing the red carpet in NYC and how you were "always on show" omfg like am i not writing a fic about this literally right now BECAUSE I SEE INTO YOUR SOUL, JAMES MCARDLE

EGT: oh my god lol ]

- James talking about how everyone kept freaking out about how Scottish he was to be playing Louis, okay, someday i’m seriously going to make a roundup of all the times over his career that James McArdle has been Scots-shamed because it is ABSURD and RIDICULOUS and INFURIATING and APPARENTLY PERPETUAL, this keeps happening to him it’s so ludicrous okay i’m calm it’s cool

- and then he's just like, "it went well, thankfully" aksjfd;lasdfklasdslsadfkladsa oh my god the downplaying, i cannot. HE SERIOUSLY HAS NO IDEA HOW PHENOMENAL HE IS. he’s so self-deprecating. 

- AAAAAAND now he’s talking about the UK class system, yes, yes, and “I think to certain audiences I will always be a Scottish actor” YES, DRAG THEM ALL, JIMMY.

(Also it took us a grand total of exactly 6 minutes to arrive at UK class politics because this is an interview with James McArdle and that’s just what you get, god i love him <3 <3 <3)

- omfg when he says that he felt like the new york crowd was baying for blood with him in particular, i 100% agree with this, all the reviews and audience comments i’ve read for this show from NYers, people just seemed so vicious about him not being Jewish (way more than Andrew not being queer), and the critics just couldn’t seem to get over his Scottishness, and it just has grated on me so much guys, i’m so sad that he felt that, too, BUT ALSO LOOK HOW MUCH HE FUCKING SHOWED THEM.

- James about the UK version of Scots-shaming = “They say you’re Scottish but they mean you’re working class, and you’ll never escape that” Yes, yes. He’s hinted at this so many times, and i’m glad he’s just coming out and saying it.

- His love for the James plays <3

- ALSO HIS HILARIOUS MOCKERY OF POSH BRITISH ACCENTS LOL

(James McArdle, you will absolutely one day play Hamlet, and that fellow RADA student who told you that you never would was probably losing his mind and feeling incredibly threatened because of how fucking incredible you are)

- They're setting Peer Gynt in Scotland because James is Scottish! What! Why are they doing this ahaha! THIS IS SO WEIRD. I MEAN. I WILL STILL SHOW UP FOR IT 8 TIMES BUT ISN’T THIS KINDA CONDESCENDING?!

- “Marianne Elliott is a perfectionist and i love her for that” <3

- Tovey didn’t want to do it, HMMMM, that’s so leading, I think that’s so veiled haha. 

- JAMES THINKS PRIOR IS A BIT OF A WHINGE AHAHAHA OMG I LOVE HIM <3 SPOKEN LIKE THE GUY PLAYING LOUIS, THAT’S THE MOST HILARIOUS <3

- James saying he views the play as one big play and not two plays is very validating, this is also how I feel! THANKS BUDDY

- oh my god the Mouse Hunt story jklsadf;a

- I love him talking about Nathan Lane lolol

- I ALSO LOVE THE TWO OPENINGS TO BOTH PARTS OF THE PLAY I’M SO HAPPY HE GAVE THESE BEAUTIFUL MONOLOGUES THE LOVE THEY DESERVE <3 

- “by the end of the fucking run they were just clap-happy. Ugh, it’s not a musical” sdf;lafkldsf;klsdfklasd oh my god i love him he’s the best

- “it’s good but it’s better that it’s over” ahahaha GUYS WHAT WAS I JUST SAYING LOL 

- oh my gosh him describing how the fear of the Democracy in America scene got worse over time, and how it actually got "unbearable”!!!!! oh gosh, you can totally understand why he was afraid, too, because like I said elsewhere on this tumblr, the audience often thought he was dropping/missing lines when he was just delivering them so erratically and Louis-y omg <3 <3 James ILU you’re wonderful

- ahahaha omg the description of him dropping the single line though as Louis ahaha, god, he’s amazing, i love that he’s so open about the PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR THAT IS ACTING HAHA

- his stance on being terrified of complacency is so obvious in everything he does, ahaha, what a good

- “i’m not method or anything, but i’m neurotic” — *rolls up sleeves* OKAY HERE WE GO DSAFKLJADS;F

- ANDREW IMMEDIATELY NOTICING THAT JAMES WAS FREAKED OUT BECAUSE HE MESSED UP A SINGLE WORD IN THEIR SCENE THOUGH

- OKAY

LIKE

TONIGHT

I AM LEARNING

THAT JAMES MCARDLE IS A WALKING HURT/COMFORT TROPE OH MY GOD DSFKLJ;AFD

THIS STORY ABOUT HIM FORGETTING THIS SINGLE WORD AND HAVING 2 SOLID WEEKS OF STAGE FRIGHT IS SO SAD AND PURE :( :( :(

[EGT: I hope Andrew fucked him out of it

sdkf;akdsfkdskds ]

- James is so proud of being a PACE kid, awwwwww that’s so dorky and sweet

- “I still feel like I’m 16″ sdflkas;fdadskfa; omg the self-deprecation is so real

- “I feel like I’m an 87-year-old woman trapped in the body of an 18-year-old but the truth is I’m just an average 28-year-old man” wait wait DID HE JUST AGE HIMSELF DOWN A YEAR, I THOUGHT HE WAS 29?  ahaha how does nobody know how old he is, i kept having to update his age in my first fic because i kept reading different reports about how old he was, god lol

- "i can't sing. i don't do false modesty and i'm telling you i can't sing."

jsdflsajflasjdljfs;lksdsd okay okay okay

1) lol somehow i already knew he couldn’t sing because he seems like the kind of guy who is philosophically opposed to the idea of himself singing ahaha

2) “i don’t do false modesty” oh my god this is so hot lololol

3) BUT ALSO JAMES MCARDLE YOU’VE JUST SAID LIKE 80 SELF-DEPRECATING STATEMENTS IN THIS ONE INTERVIEW ALONE LOL, INCLUDING THIS ONE

4) LOL WHATEVER FUCK YOU  <3

- OH MY GOD THIS BAT STORY ASLDKJF;SFAD THIS BAT STORY

- i love that he’s telling his RADA audition story, omg <3 i’ve been wanting him to elaborate on this story!!!!! “you cheeky little bastard” — omfg i love him, you are a cheeky little bastard, well done, James McArdle <3

- “James McArdle, you walk like a fucking pogo stick” askldfjflaks;df what ahaha

- THEY’RE DOING AN AUDIOBOOK OF ANGELS <3 I’M SO EXCITED FOR THIS <3 

- how is he still allowed to not say what the play is, WE ALL KNOW IT’S THE IBSEN CYCLE, LOL

- I’m so glad he’s taking this whole month off and SO glad he’s steering clear of the Fringe ahaha, and I’m sorry, barring the press junket for Mary Queen of Scots, what the hell is he doing with his time for the next 12 months, god damn

- ahahaha i’m sad we were deprived of “Mr. Brightside” as an Irish jig. 

- “I also find now, the older I get — I’m saying this like I’m some old, jaded — I don’t even like to engage in conversations about the plays or the play. I just let people — especially people who ardently give you their clever opinion about what they liked and what they don’t like, and I just don’t care.” — James McArdle, I understand this impulse but also I think you might be a wee bit depressed

- “I’m not remotely interested, I want you to say I looked great, my costumes looked brilliant, and I was great.” ahaha. NO FALSE MODESTY HERE lol.

- “I’m grumpy, I feel grumpy!” salkjdfksalfd God he sounds like he needs such a long relaxing happy colorful vacation. I hope he gets it. <3 

(But also I’m really glad he’s talking about how he needs to keep momentum going and find more work soon because this is exactly the plot of the fic I’m writing right now, which is set right now, and it’s nice that I’m keeping it in-character ahaha, THANKS, JAMES MCARDLE, CONTINUE TO BE BEAUTIFULLY TRANSPARENT, BYE)

[mcarfield]

I was talking to @csifan3 about The Chamber and she hadn’t seen the gifs I made way back in July so I went back and rounded up a few of the best ones from those old posts. Let’s see if Tumblr plays well with them.

Also I made an entire screencap gallery of this movie because the cinematographer is completely obsessed with closeups of James McArdle’s face, like the rest of us. So the whole movie is basically just a sketchy nonsensical plot used as an excuse for, uh, this:

so, like, a watch of this dumb movie and his LOVELY AMAZING ACTING in it is not by any means a waste of your time, because he is honestly so good in it, sob, but if you would just like to see James McArdle looking pretty, then right this way.

[mcarfield]

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I thought that I’d already shared this interview here but it turns out I had not!! This is the source of the gifset I just posted, it’s from what I guess is James’s one and only Drama League interview. I wish this interviewer had asked better questions, but bless this cameraperson for giving us such a nice view.

[mcarfield]

James McArdle at the Drama League Awards, May 18, 2018, photo by Caitlin McNaney (X)

[mcarfield]

James McArdle sighting!

Friends of the Twitter McArdle posse reportedly spotted him at the press night for Eugenius tonight in London!  

right, that’s all I’ve got, stan out

[mcarfield]

James McArdle, Alison Steadman, Maureen Lipman, Guest and Tam Williams Chariots of Fire - Press Night at The Hampstead Theatre London, England - 22.05.12 (X)

[mcarfield]

lolol James McArdle in 2015, talking about how much he likes that the audience is turning out for “boxset” theatre:

“There’s clearly an appetite for event theatre,” he says. “What’s quite special about this, is a cast being in rep. It’s just not done anymore, but I hope this way of working comes in to fashion again.”

James McArdle in 2018, probably: OH GOD WHY DID I SIGN UP FOR TWO YEARS OF AN 8-HOUR PLAY

[mcarfield]

Rehearsal pics from Young Chekhov, 2015 (X)

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James McArdle, Backstage interview <3 (X)

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I sold my soul and signed up for the Glasgow Times for this article and I regret nothing, lol.

Highlights:

* James is a “left-handed only child”

* “A huge Star Wars fan, McArdle lobbied hard to get into” The Force Awakens

* James saying he read James 1 and “opened the window fully” oh my god I cannot

* James supporting #Indyref, you beautiful socialist <3 

* “McArdle is single-minded, singular — but not unpleasantly so.” OH REALLY.

On a short break from the National Theatre’s Platonov, in which he plays the title role, James McArdle toys with a copper ring on his finger. “That’s my wedding ring,” he nods. Hold on, you’re married? “No, it’s Platonov’s!” says the 27-year-old, appalled. “God, no, no. No, no. But look how green it’s left me,” he says in a Glaswegian burr, observing the residue on his hand. “Cheap.”

Common sense should have told me this was Platonov’s ring: McArdle is still in costume for this early Chekhov piece, written when the good doctor was about 20. He also wears a linen smock, linen trousers and stomping knee-high boots; his hair is vigorously decoiffed and, théâtre oblige, he has on a size­able amount of eyeliner. It’s a suitable guise for one of Chekhov’s roughest and readiest creations. Originally, he was the hero of a billowing seven-hour piece, never performed in the writer’s lifetime, but now, here, he’s the star of a streamlined version by David Hare. Along with Hare’s tinkerings with Ivanov and The Seagull, it is part of a Young Chekhov trilogy that won raves in Chichester last autumn and has now been imported, wholesale, to the South Bank.

It’s Platonov who wears a wedding ring, then, but only nominally, as the action revolves around this dissolute, disillusioned schoolteacher and his antics with various women on the estate next door. It requires an actor of particular power to spin all these plates, to seduce and appal us nonstop, and that man is McArdle, whose rather everyday features belie a char­isma most pretty-boy actors can only dream of. (His performance won him the Sunday Times/National Theatre Charleson award last month.)

It is a breakout role, or, rather, a further one after he impressed in the West End hit Chariots of Fire and as James I of Scotland in Rona Munro’s James Plays. Platonov, this “young man’s play”, as he calls it, taps into something deep. “I read it, and I just related to him very much,” he says with an awkward smile. “I felt very close to the part... I say that as though it’s something to be proud of!”

Yes, I say, recalling the four women he snogs in the show, how do you relate to him? He snickers. “Various character­istics.” Any in particular? “Ah, you know...” He laughs, then regroups. “Any young man gets to a certain age in his life when he looks around and thinks, have I done what I set out to do?”

Platonov is 27, like McArdle. That’s apt. “Yes, but people think I’m older.” Why is that? “I don’t know. My maturity or my ­haggard face. One or the other. Jonathan Kent [his director] says I’m the oldest person he’s ever met.” Are you a mature person, then? “I don’t think so. If you mean boring, no.” How about a wise head on young shoulders? He nods his head sagely. “Aye, too wise, too wise. It’s exhausting, you know.”

In Ivanov, McArdle plays the moralising doctor, Lvov. (The three shows are played in rep by a fine company.) It’s a very different role from Platonov, and testament to his range. There is a bit of Lvov in him too, he insists — “I can get on my high horse and be priggish” — but Platonov is the star role. You could almost sell it, following in the line of the Young Vic’s Three Sisters and the Almeida’s Vanya, as part of a general debunking of genteel Chekhov, of that kind of production where people sit around primly and moan in RP. Indeed, the icing on the cake is McArdle’s Glaswegian accent.

“A girl in the cast’s posh friend said, ‘Oh goodness, and is that to show the class difference?’” he recalls. “And I was, like, well, I’m actually doing a posher Glaswegian as Platonov, but I know you wouldn’t really understand what a posher Glaswegian accent is versus a normal Glaswegian accent. I was also, like, you’re aware they’re Russian, aren’t you?”

You may have gathered by now that McArdle is single-minded, singular — but not unpleasantly so. Rather, he is, as he sums it up, “a left-handed only child”, and this somehow explains a great deal. When he was nine, producers came into his school looking to cast actors for a children’s TV production, Stacey Stone. “I think they were just looking for the most obnoxious wee boy they could find,” he laughs.

After that, he only ever wanted to act — apart from wanting to be a vet, or a pilot, or prime minister. (It would be First Minister now.) Actually, it’s quite clear they never stood a chance. He had no background in the arts at all, but his parents were always supportive. “My dad said, ‘Carol, we are going to see everything he is in — even if it is shite.’”

His mates from back home are equally encouraging, though one gig really stood out — McArdle’s appearance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where he played Niv Lek, a Resistance fighter.

You had one line of dialogue? “I had three, goddammit!” A huge Star Wars fan, McArdle lobbied hard to get into the movie, not caring about being a glorified extra. His friends shared his enthusiasm, going to see it five times. McArdle says he was “mortified”, but not as mortified as when they all came to Edinburgh to see him play James I.

In this vicious slab of medieval history, McArdle’s king has an awkward sex scene. “I could hear my mate — he’s got this really squawkish, high-pitched laugh, and as soon as I took my trousers down, I could just hear it. But you know, it’s so nice.”

James I was, he says, a defining role for him. He cancelled a recall for a role in the film Suffragrette to prepare for the audition, he wanted it so badly. “I will never forget, when I read it, I opened the window fully, I had the doors open and I just lay there, because I was, like, I have to get this part, I have to get it.” Why? It’s just a great play, but also, he says he had never heard “our voice, our Scottish voice, captured in a nonpatronising, universal way before”.

The National Theatre of Scotland performed the play during and after the Scottish referendum, and it was “like doing different plays”. When I ask if he would welcome a second referendum, he winces, but says quietly that he would, and that he would vote to leave the Union. But it would only be to have the majority of Scottish views upheld, he insists, as opposed to any kind of nationalism.

“I find patriotism a little foolish, to be honest. I never say I’m proud to be Scottish. I say I’m lucky to be Scottish, because I think it’s quite foolish to be proud of something that is chance.”

Not that he doesn’t love being Scottish; he’s just not quite sure what it entails. “I always get” — he puts on a posh accent — “‘Oh, you’re sooo Scottish!’ I don’t know what it means.” Never­theless, he also knows that national traits are potent, not least when tackling Chekhov. “Being Glaswegian feels more Russian than being English.”

He stands out in theatreland, though, and he knows it. There is much angst now about acting being a posh kids’ profession: has he felt like a fish out of water? He shrugs, saying it’s all “fashion”; and, although he insists we shouldn’t care, and says it’s “boring”, he then roils around the topic for about 10 minutes. What bothers him is people attending to trends and celebrity and fame, when the only real thing is to do good work.

“Yes, I do think they’ve been favoured,” he says of all those nice young Etonians, “but, actually, I think they’ve been favoured throughout all of time, and will be favoured throughout all of time. And I think, well, I have to carve my own path around that — and I am up for that fight. You know, I’ll come back and back into the room!

I don’t care, I’m not gonna let posh boys stop me!” As though it even needed saying.

The Young Chekhov trilogy is in rep at the National Theatre, London SE1, until Oct 8

[mcarfield]

James McArdle playing the Chekhov Challenge (X)

[mcarfield]

dany_kruk#TBT with #JamesMcArdle 🖤 Last year that time - the final set of #AngelsInAmerica at @nationaltheatre 🎭 #AniołyWAmeryce #NationalTheatre#TheatreFreak #StageDoor #ILoveTheatre#Theatre  (X)