Ian McShane: ​‘Mas­culin­i­ty has become more com­pli­cat­ed over the last 20 years’

Ian McShane has pre­cise­ly the sort of charm you’d expect from, well, a vet­er­an movie star. He’s unerr­ing­ly polite and chat­ty, with a glint of rogu­ish­ness about him. The fea­tures that have defined his men­ac­ing pres­ence onscreen (as Al Swearen­gen in Dead­wood, and as Win­ston in John Wick) – the severe mouth, crin­kled blue eyes and hawk­ish demeanour – are in per­son strik­ing, far beyond the expec­ta­tions one might lay at the feet of a 74-year-old man.

LWLies sat down with McShane to chat about his lat­est role as a shady ille­gal fight pro­mot­er in the British box­ing dra­ma Jaw­bone. We also man­aged to squeeze in a brief dis­cus­sion of bad super­hero movies, the chang­ing roles of tough guys onscreen, and his upcom­ing project with… Dr Dre.

LWLies: What was it about Jaw­bone that got your attention?

McShane: Well, Jon­ny Har­ris wrote the script. We’re friends in real life, we’ve done a movie togeth­er. We did Snow White & the Hunts­man, which Ray Win­stone was also in. And John­ny was an ama­teur box­er, so this film is part­ly auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal. But it was because it was very nice to do a film – a prop­er movie. I’m not talk­ing a small movie ver­sus big movie, but when you’re work­ing the first two days, there was a real cama­raderie. The direc­tor knew what he was doing. It was love­ly to come back a year lat­er, hav­ing not seen it, and real­ly being impressed by it.

It seems like box­ing films have been mak­ing a come­back lately.

It’s because box­ing movies are metaphors for life. They can be what­ev­er. Break­ing out of the work­ing class or break­ing out of your own life. I nev­er boxed as a kid, but I always admired it because I think it’s a sport like – not foot­ball, fuck any team sports – but with box­ing and ten­nis, there’s only you, nobody else. There’s nowhere to hide. You’re on your own in there, so I‘ve got huge admi­ra­tion for boxers.

It teach­es you dis­ci­pline, and that’s what Jimmy’s lost in his life. That’s what box­ing gave him – dis­ci­pline, struc­ture. It doesn’t mat­ter if he doesn’t box I again, but he’s got that back. And he’s also over­come his biggest fear, him­self. With him being in AA, as well, that’s the issue. And I’ve got an affin­i­ty with that, being sober com­ing up 30 years, but I know John­ny is com­ing up to 10 years sober. AA gives you the same thing – discipline.

Were the John Wick films as fun to make as they are to watch?

With the first film, I said, who can resist 10 days in New York in Decem­ber? Beau­ti­ful city. And I’d met Keanu before, he’s a great guy. The direc­tor, Chad Sta­hel­s­ki, made a movie where you knew what the genre was, but they didn’t have expec­ta­tions. John Wick had a lot of affec­tion going for it. From the pub­lic and from the crit­ics. It came from nowhere, and it didn’t have all the hype. And num­ber 2 hasn’t real­ly had a lot of hype. But it’s a ter­rif­ic movie. It doesn’t have a big bud­get, and it car­ries on from the day the first one fin­ish­es. John’s in jeop­ardy. And if they make num­ber 3 – well, c’mon, you know they will.

If you’re in anoth­er one would you like to get a few action scenes?

Oh no, I’ll leave that to Keanu. Maybe they’ll dis­cov­er Win­ston was an expert with a knife or some­thing, I don’t know. We’ll see. But the film con­cen­trates on what it does best. Back­sto­ries are wast­ed. You just need John Wick to be there. I hate movies that sud­den­ly start explain­ing every­thing – John Wick cre­at­ed a world, this may­hem in New York. A lot of it is shot at night, with that love­ly dark blue kind of metal­lic look to it. I think they did this great job at the sec­ond one.

You have a very dis­tinct per­sona. You’re intim­i­dat­ing, a men­ac­ing author­i­ty fig­ure, a gang­ster… is there any­thing you do when you’re on set to turn that switch on?

I think there’s two things that always help with that. Still­ness, and don’t speak too quick­ly. James Cagney had that great phrase: ​‘Plant your feet, look the oth­er actor in the eye, and don’t trip over the fur­ni­ture.’ Which is him being coy, but still­ness and con­trol emanates from you that way. Some­one who’s run­ning around all the time – nobody’s scared of them. You have to be some­one who has a sort of con­trol with­out seem­ing in con­trol. But the one line that gives my char­ac­ter Joe away in Jaw­bone is when John­ny says, ​‘Oh, I’ll give you the mon­ey back’, and Joe says, ​‘Of course you will.’ But it doesn’t have to be said in a scary way.

Look­ing back at your career, films like Vil­lain now seem ahead of their time in terms of the way they look at mas­culin­i­ty and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. Would you say that you’ve seen that por­tray­al of ​‘tough guys’ change over the years?

I think they’ve become more com­pli­cat­ed over the last 20 years. Start­ing with Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion in the late ​’90s with the Sopra­nos, an over­looked pro­gramme called Oz, and then Dead­wood. Those shows showed vil­lains in a more com­pli­cat­ed light. No one wears a black hat or a white hat any­more – you wear a grey one. Char­ac­ters are more com­pli­cat­ed and we’re used to that now. One of the great quotes is from the guy who wrote Break­ing Bad, Vince Gilli­gan, ​‘What’s Break­ing Bad about?’ and he said ​‘Mr Chips goes gang­ster.’ Which is great. Phe­nom­e­nal idea for a show. He starts to believe he’s good at it.

And you’ve done tele­vi­sion, small­er bud­get films, mas­sive block­busters. Do you have a pref­er­ence between them?

No. The prob­lem with the big films is the time. They’re fun to do, but they take too long. Movies like Jaw­bone, you’re there and you’ve done your bit.

What do block­busters have over small movies?

The cater­ing. So many of these super­hero movies now are all dark and depress­ing. They used to be about bright sun­light. I was on loca­tion last year and I took a glimpse at Bat­man v Super­man. Jesus. Apart from being incred­i­bly bor­ing, dear god almighty, I didn’t know what was going on.

How do you decide what role is right for you at what time?

It’s always nice to sur­prise peo­ple. I’ve got a thing com­ing out with Dr Dre. We did it last year. And it’s sort of about Dre’s life. There are three char­ac­ters who are fig­ments of his imag­i­na­tion, but we appear. Sam Rock­well is ​‘Ego’, Michael K Williams is ​‘Neg­a­tiv­i­ty’, and I play ​‘Vengeance’. We all argue amongst our­selves. And it’s about what’s going on in Dre’s mind. Vengeance wins, though.