Clive Owen: Honest spook who is worn down by world

An actor since the age of 13, Clive Owen gets better as he gets older.

Now 47, he plays a weary MI5 spook in Shadow Dancer in a role that’s less showy than he has been used to of late, but nonetheless impactful. When he’s on screen it’s hard to look at anyone else.

It’s 14 years since he enjoyed his big screen breakthrough as the anti-hero at the heart of Mike Hodges’s Croupier. Previously he’d endured a topsy-turvy few years, not least because he tossed away his TV image as a roguish roué in Chancer to play a man with incestuous designs on his sister in Close My Eyes.

His fans didn’t like that. And they bristled when he played a homosexual incarcerated in Dachau in the film version of Martin Sherman’s Bent.

Suddenly the hits came thick and fast. There was Gosford Park, The Bourne Identity and then Closer, King Arthur, Inside Man and Children of Men. From supporting face to bona fide leading man in what felt like a breath. And he’s never looked back.

Working within an ensemble – like in Sin City with the likes of Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke – gave Owen time to grow and evolve as a film actor. It roughed up those smooth lines and made him less a movie star and more a film actor – and there’s a big difference.

And it’s as a watchable and nuanced film actor that he appears in Shadow Dancer. The film belongs to Andrea Riseborough as Colette McVeigh, a young mother trapped within a family of hard-line Republican revolutionaries in 1990s Belfast.

The director calls Colette “a specific example of a generic truth”. But Owen lends extra credibility as Mac, a role 
that could just have been 
a cipher.

“He’s not the obvious, clear-cut government agent or the clichéd MI5 guy because very quickly he’s kind of trapped outside of his own world,” says Owen, anticipating the question.

“He’s not included and he’s floating in a strange place. He begins to see that people are doing things around him that he doesn’t approve of.”

Owen portrays Mac as an honest man – an idealist in an age when most of his contemporaries have been worn down by the job. Convincing Colette to become a mole is something Mac believes in. He’s almost pure – and hopelessly naive.

Owen adds: “I could have played that part in a very different way: the tough MI5 guy that bullies the girl into doing it and is tough all the way. I just thought it was much more interesting for him to be genuine.

“Then very quickly he realises his superiors are prepared to compromise her and he gets a conscience – and I think that’s very believable. His problem is 
that he starts to care a little and that’s probably not 
great.”

Director James Marsh shot his film not in Belfast but in Dublin “for boring reasons” to do with budgets and sets. For Owen it recalled his own experiences in the Troubles as a young actor performing in theatre in Belfast. He remembers the city as “a war zone”.

“I grew up with it – that threat being in the air. Every night there was some report on the news about Northern Ireland. I did a play and stayed in Belfast for a week during the Troubles and it was rough.

“They do these drills where the vans just pull up, the soldiers all jump out and they hit their positions. The first time I saw that I seriously thought ‘I’m in the middle of a situation’. I wasn’t. They were just showing their presence. But when you’re not used to seeing that it’s very disconcerting.”

Owen is a big fan of James Marsh.

Similarly Marsh wanted Owen from the off, though initially he was unavailable. When he finally got him, Marsh responded to 
what he called Owen’s mixture of vulnerability 
and cynicism.

Andrea Riseborough agreed, saying: “There are only a handful of actors who could achieve that kind of strength and reserve and vulnerability.”

Director, like actor, wanted to avoid Mac being an “off-the-peg” character; his moral awakening is his undoing.

“I was really impressed with how tight the script was,” recalls Owen.

“I thought it was really lean, economical. I loved the premise; from the minute it started, I was gripped and wanted to know where it was going to go.

“It didn’t spread into areas I wasn’t interested in, it was very focused, very tight and it was in really good shape.

“It was one of those scripts where you didn’t need to do too much to it. So that was the first thing.

“And then I spoke to James and he was so intelligent about the material and obviously had such a strong angle on the way he wanted to do it. So I said yes.”

He denies any suggestion that he took what was essentially a guest-starring role after avoiding thrillers for a while. “It’s weird, it’s never that conscious. When you look at it, it’s just a series of decisions that were made 
but I never, ever go, ‘I don’t want to do this genre now’ I want to do this one’. I never make decisions like that,” 
he says.

“It’s a straight response to a piece of material and who’s directing it. The films that I’ve done in the last few years are just the ones I responded to. And I responded to Shadow Dancer.

“Listen, the first barometer was debuting at the Sundance Film Festival where the reviews were pretty fantastic. If that’s a barometer, we’ll be OK because people appreciate what James is trying to do.

“I think he’s made an intelligent and sensitive film. I don’t think it’s crass. It’s not [about] big obvious sweeping statements; it’s delicate and intelligent.”

Shadow Dancer (15) is on nationwide release from today.

Life and time of Clive Owen

Born in Coventry in 1964, Clive Owen got the acting bug playing the Artful Dodger in a school production of Oliver!

He trained at RADA, joined the Young Vic Theatre Company and while playing Romeo fell in love with Sarah-Jane Fenton, the actress playing Juliet. They married in 1995.

Audiences got their first glimpse of Owen’s charisma in a series of commercials for BMW.

His cool persona The Driver coincided with the first of a string of offers to make films in Hollywood.

He won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his performance as Larry in Closer, the story of two couples, and was nominated for an Oscar.