Colm Wilkinson Interview On 'Les Miserables,' Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway

It was obviously quite different. Obviously, when I heard that the movie was happening and I got the part of the Bishop, it was great. It was great to be part of the project. In regard to playing it, I was 50/50 about it initially to be quite honest. Mainly because, you know, I had created that role [Jean Valjean]. I thought to myself that maybe it was a step backwards. But actually, I began to see that it would be great to be associated with the project on a couple of levels, and I already studied the Bishop’s character. The Bishop’s character in the musical was never fully explored because of the time element we had on stage — it’s the first 200 pages of the book, about the Bishop and Valjean and their relationship. I thought he was really just a great character. Mostly, I was excited about getting to work with Jackman and Hathaway, there were certainly great people in there. It was an attraction to me as well and a publicity get for me as well. I had a great experience on the movie. They were very gracious to me. Obviously, they knew who I was, the original Valjean. It was great to be part of that.

It was very different. As I said, we get on stage, we get into character. You walk on stage to play this man and you start your emotional journey, and you start your journey musically and you set out on that journey for about a two and half hour period of time. When we were doing the movie, we sort of shot out of sequence. Hugh Jackman, when he walks towards the Bishop in the end, we jumped out of sequence. I think it’s very difficult to jump backward and forward emotionally. You have to get used to doing that. I would find that that is one huge difference. Another huge difference I found was, let’s say you are a theatrical person and in the theater they expect you to project even though that was never a part of what I did on stage. I always try to play with the characters around me; create what we created on stage, an emotional theme around which the audience can gravitate. A lot of people get out there and they sort of gravitate towards the audience instead of around the people on stage. I never found that an emotionally proper way to work. What I’m getting to is in a movie — the camera is your audience. You don’t have to project that much. You have to learn to discipline yourself in the process of defining, defining, defining all the time. Once the emotion shows in your face, the camera gets it, you don’t have to overdo it, which is actually something you learn in the theater as well. You have to be very, very real and aware and you have to make sure you do not overplay the part. That was a huge difference. You have to be very careful with that.

Well, playing a guy like the Bishop, he’s fictional, of course, but there are very few people like that around now. In the Catholic religion, there are some, but it’s hard to find someone with his humility and his generosity towards everybody around him. He’s just an amazing character. You look at people like that and you think, 'Do they actually exist in real life?' And the way you would describe him, he does exist and he did exist. I think a lot of people also forget that even if it is a fictional piece, the book, the actual historic period that he describes is very factual. [Victor Hugo] talks about the poverty, he talks about prostitution, he talks about all of that. It had a huge effect on him I’m sure. He wrote to a certain degree in honesty. In regard to it affecting my life, I’m sure it has had a direct effect on me because you always learn from characters. You always learn from characters like Valjean and overcoming all the adversity that he had, to become the man he became at the end. A great thing about the Bishop’s role also was that he always kept the candlesticks. I thought it was great to be the Bishop in the end when he dies and Valjean starts having this conversation with him, and instead of throwing them away, he keeps the candlesticks. He actually keeps the candlesticks as a reminder of this man, and this man’s goodness. He tries to live this life as the way this man wanted him to live, like a mentor. I think you look things like that and think, 'You know, what is the possibility that someone like that did exist, they actually do exist and it makes you think twice about life and twice about adversity.' As I said, it’s historically factual to life. It makes you think about the people in those days who suffered those kinds of indignities, and to actually be very grateful and very thankful for what you have. Love your life. That’s one of the things that came to me. Another thing about that musical, I got a lot of emails from people who were actually sort of galvanized by seeing that show who saw this is a great sort of inspirational theme and not only Valjean. For instance, the political things in the movie – that’s what happened in the streets at that time and it’s still happening today. What happened in the novel, the poverty and prostitution that clearly still exist in life but in a different way. Things have not changed that much. It’s just presented differently now.

Well obviously, the role that I did play. That’s a great role. That’s the best role that I’ve ever played in my life, because it was a huge thing. It was a huge journey, a spiritual journey, a sort of redemption, and to be part of it, like in the book. You know, I would love for them to have actually featured the character of the Bishop a lot more in the musical. He plays such a huge part in Valjean’s life, in redeeming him and putting him on the right path. If you read the book, and read the first 150 or 200 — it’s just incredible, these are incredible characters and I also wondered why they didn’t spend more time on him. But out of all the characters, I would still pick Valjean as the character that I would play.

Oh, yeah. I have to say that I gave him quite the advice continuously. He did approach me at one stage. My advice was that everybody’s unique in their own way. Everybody does their own thing. Everybody does their thing in their own way, and Hugh Jackman is a very talented actor. He’s got this huge work ethic. He’s a very intelligent man. I knew that he would be applying himself to the role. I just said, ‘Look, my advice to you is just do it your way. Do it the way you want to do things. Do it the way you think you should do it. Don’t emulate me or copy me or anybody else for that matter. Just do what you feel emotionally is right for you.’ And obviously you don’t do that anyway. But I think he actually did a great job, and it’s a tough gig. Hugh Jackman did about 10 or 12 takes. But sometimes it was brutal kind of work, we were in all sorts of strange conditions, in the cold, in damp locations. I was just absolutely blown away with the work ethic, not only of Hugh Jackman but everybody and the way they applied themselves. I think they had a huge respect for which I was delighted. They had a huge respect for the book and the musical, and a lot of these people had grown up with the musical, they had a huge respect for the musical. They applied themselves in a wonderful way. It was great to see. They didn’t take anything for granted. They worked so hard at what they did, it’s incredible.

Well, obviously that he is following his conviction. The way that Hugh Jackman actually got, initially got into that gaunt, physically deteriorated stage, hair cropped, scars on his head, actually got himself to that stage, his acting, his character, it was totally believable that Javert would never ever know him. But at the same time, that was the first time I ever saw the portrayal as believable, in any movie. So I think he did an incredible job of being the character to what it was in the beginning. In regard to Javert, he recognized what Valjean was, he was totally obsessed with what he had to do and the laws of the land, speaking strictly of the law and that’s what he carried. I understood speaking in character that this man was doing his job. He does not hate him [Valjean], because then he releases him. Javert couldn’t understand that he had him, he could’ve killed him, lived a free life, but he actually released him and he can’t take that, that’s why he commits suicide. There are two ways of looking at that. He committed suicide to free Valjean from him and he also commits suicide because he cannot take that Valjean actually led him there.

You know what I felt? My wife pointed it out, a very intelligent woman, I found that because of my association with the musical over the years, playing the character, reading the book so many times, I found it difficult to be objective. I actually have to go back and see it again. I never saw it in any of the openings because I was busy working, but I had to go back and see it again because I felt it was too close. But I felt Anne Hathaway, where they placed Fantine’s song, it was very clever emotionally, because in the actual musical it happens after she sings. In the movie, it happens after she has become a prostitute. She’s got her hair shorn and she’s devastated by life. I thought that was very poignant and powerful to put that song right there because the story and the sound just fit perfectly right there. The sound right there is perfect. A huge thing for me was just the actual stage show. I think you could take it in. I think they are two different things, I mean the stage show is what it is. You see the whole thing being played out. In a movie you see it closer, the characters are much more intimate. There is much more intimacy and that’s a different experience. I would have to see the movie, I think, a couple of more times. I’m into the story being told in a certain way and it’s told differently in the movie. But overall, I think Tom Hooper did a great job with the movie, given that trying to adapt music to film or to the screen is a very difficult process. Especially because when people go the movies, they come with a different mindset. They are looking at a screen and they expect the actors to talk, they don’t expect you to start singing. People are not used to watching a screen and have you start singing like in opera. It’s difficult. But I think that we did that very well and it became quite believable after a while that these people would be singing about their situation rather than speaking.