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Home / Interviews & Articles / Death in Holy Orders |
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This page was last updated on 4th September 2004. Page launched on 4th September 2004. Site launched on 8th February 2004.
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INTERVIEWS & ARTICLES
Death in Holy Orders BBC, UK, 2003
Jesse Spencer, best known for playing heart-throb Billy Kennedy in Neighbours, admits that filming Death In Holy Orders was often a gruelling experience – but, surprisingly, the filming of one scene that would have sent a lesser man back to the sunnier climes of Australia didn’t faze him at all.
“You’re going to think I’m mad, but swimming totally naked in the North Sea in November for one of my scenes really wasn’t that bad. I didn’t have a wet suit or anything – it was just me and the sea. I’d never done a nude scene before, but I found it completely liberating. I surf back home in Melbourne in the winter, and that’s pretty cold – not quite as cold as it was in the North Sea, but still decidedly chilly. In Australia, I always wear a wet suit.
“This, however, was an altogether different experience.When I first dived in, I thought it was going to be all right, but the waves and the temperature absolutely whacked me. I just had to keep swimming, but I felt as though I’d been winded, so breathing was a real struggle.The more I swam, the warmer I became. I went on to do it twice again. Once you’re swimming, it’s a wonderful feeling; the natural rush of it is fantastic.”
The Norfolk coast in winter is a long way from Ramsay Street and Spencer admits that, while he loved being in Neighbours, he has struggled to shake off the part of Billy Kennedy. “I was in Neighbours for four years and had the most fantastic time. It’s ironic, really, because I didn’t want to accept the part at first. I didn’t think it was a sensible career move. But my parents convinced me to take it.At the end of the day, they were right, but it has taken me a few years to persuade people that I’m not really Billy Kennedy.”
Acting was by no means the obvious career move for Spencer.“My dad is a doctor, as are my two elder brothers and my younger sister. I was offered a place to read medicine at Melbourne University, but I decided to defer my place and pursue acting instead. I never really wanted to become a doctor – I’d rather go swimming naked in the North Sea, thanks! I didn’t go to acting school. Instead, when I was 12, I did some musical theatre, having been in the choir at school, and then I was offered the Neighbours job. On reflection, I don’t think I’ll take up my place at Melbourne University after all. I’m having far too much fun acting.”
Jesse, who also starred in the BBC’s production of Lorna Doone, has evidently relished the opportunity to play the Machiavellian and manipulative ordinand Raphael Arbuthnot in PD James’s Death In Holy Orders.“Raphael is a fantastic character.There is just so much for me to play with. Raphael surrounds himself with so many people and keeps himself really busy within the world of St Anselm’s but, essentially, he feels ostracised by his peers and religious teachers. His loneliness drives him to use and abuse people to suit his own ends. Of course, in the end, it all comes back to haunt him.
“At the end of the day, the plot revolves around a horribly gruesome murder, so it’s inevitable that there wasn’t too much light relief on set. But I prefer to come to work and have a heavy day; I like to go home feeling that I have earned my dinner.”
For the first time in his life, Spencer was the youngest person on set. He found it easy to fit in with the veteran performers, but one of the biggest challenges he faced was the demands of his role as an ordinand.
“Ironically enough, I found it was far harder to learn plainsong and sing in Latin than it was to face the hardships of the North Sea. Maybe the hardest thing of all was a scene in which my character reads aloud from Trollope’s Barchester Towers. I found the language and the stilted English almost impenetrable. Of course, it’s nice and easy for Janie Dee, Robert Hardy,Alan Howard and the rest of the cast, the majority of whom have been practically brought up with Shakespeare, but I found it painfully tough. Swimming naked in the North Sea was a doddle by comparison!”
Spencer has been very busy recently, starring in feature films both in America and Australia.The US movie, Molly Gunn, also stars 8 Mile’s Brittany Murphy; the Australian Swimming Upstream sees Spencer starring alongside two of Australia’s foremost actors: Geoffrey Rush, who won an Oscar for his performance in Shine, and Judy Davis, Oscar nominated for roles in David Lean’s A Passage To India and Woody Allen’s Husbands And Wives.
“Molly Gunn was a crazy experience,” says Spencer. “I play a struggling musician in New York, who falls in love with Brittany Murphy’s character, the eponymous Molly Gunn. He wants to be taken desperately seriously and then becomes a onehit wonder, much to his chagrin. It’s a really funny movie.
“Swimming Upstream, on the other hand, is far darker. It’s based on the true story of the Fingleton family and is set in Fifties Australia. I play Tony Fingleton, the youngest son of a very troubled family, whose phenomenal swimming talents finally win him his father’s attention and love. It’s a sad story but a very uplifting one, too. My character comes through and finds his inner strength, in spite of his father’s alcoholism and abusiveness.”
Spencer, who relishes the opportunity to spend time with his London-based Maltese girlfriend, is currently back in Melbourne. But he will undoubtedly be back soon, leaving Billy Kennedy and the prospect of Melbourne University far behind him.
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