Sean Gilder (HH1)

Poor Sean Gilder. After portraying the gritty and acerbic Styles in the Hornblower films, he reached out to his fans by posting on the message boards of this site. He was quickly rebuked, however, by the skeptics who couldn't believe that a cast member would actually do so (and considered him an imposter). It seems that he forgives us, though, because he graciously took the time to speak with A&E from his home in London.

A&E: Tell us about how you approached playing the character of Styles -- he seems to get some of the best lines in the film.

SG: Originally, I read the scripts for the first two films. They were already written. The second two weren't written until later on. The director when he'd met me thought I was probably quite right for them. A lot of the gags, jokes, and the sense of the character was already there, in as much as he was probably a classic foil to Matthews. Matthews is quite sturdy and honest and dependable and Styles is a sturdy, honest, but slightly less dependable character. He's sort of a little bit reprobate but he's also very loyal when he has a reason to be loyal. Then I did read a couple of books, and I knew a little bit about the Navy, and I sort of got in my head the basis for a character. I thought he was probably press ganged, so when he first joined the Navy he didn't really want to be in it. I think he's probably quite close to my character, actually. I'm very loyal and I work very hard but I also like to have a bit of a laugh and I like to give my characters a bit of an edge. I think it all just kind of came naturally.

A&E: Styles seems like a fun character to play.

SG: He was very much fun to play. There were times when my own sort of sense of adventure or mischief was probably a little bit too much for the director and he said "stop that." I remember there was once when I tried to steal the French captain's hat when we were all on the boat and Andrew turned to me and he said "you can't do that" and I said "why not" and he said "he's a prisonor and that's a little bit too disrespectful." And he was of course correct, but I think I sometimes tried to take twentieth century cheek into the character which would never be allowed. I remember Andrew Grieve came out with a very good statement about Styles: he said he's full of dumb insolence. You're not really allowed to talk back to the officers but if you stay quiet they still get the hint that you're being slightly insolent which we worked on. Ioan and I, along with Andrew Grieve, kind of re-wrote that first scene when he meets us. That was originally "Oh well the doctors told me to put plasters on it blah blah blah." We decided it would be much funnier if I just said "oh yes sir" and he says "what have you done to your face" and say" I put plasters on them sir" and just leave it at that. It's taking the mickey without being obviously taking the mickey. There's lots of that sort of stuff that we all worked on together -- we all worked very hard together.

A&E: How did you film the infamous rat scene?

SG: That was a stuffed rat on my face. There were real rats running around me and they were Ukranian. We all thought they were under the influence of vodka cause they wouldn't move very quickly. The most frightening thing about that was that it was the final shot. We were supposed to have done it weeks earlier but it ended up being the final sequence that the crew shot. And so there was a little bit of worry but as a joke I'd say "it's all very well giving me the final sequence but you're giving it to me now cause they might have rabies and if I get bit it wouldn't matter cause I finished all my filming." It was great fun to do. You know, a rat's a rat. I'm not scared of them as long as I know they're not going to climb on my face and the one that was on my face was stuffed so I didn't mind.

A&E: How did you originally get cast in Hornblower?

SG: I had met Andrew Grieve two or three months earlier as a general sort of interview. Andrew and I just got on very well. The production was pushed back for a few months and I was actually doing another job. I wouldn't have been able to do Hornblower. Fortunately it was delayed for two months and it coincided with me finishing another job and they just asked me to do it. I think Andrew had seen some of my work and the casting agents knew my work as well, so that was how it happened really.

A&E: What was it like to shoot on location in the Ukraine? I've heard that the hotel you stayed in was kind of rustic...

SG: The room factory, I called it. It was basically a huge battleship version of a hotel. It was a 2,000 bed hotel that was presumably, in the days of the Soviet Union, quite glorious. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, a lot of the members of the communist party who used to go down to Yalta for their summer holidays didn't go there anymore and it was kind of functional now rather than luxury. We went three weeks without hot water. It was very hard considering we were filming at sea all day, and we'd get back to the hotel about eight o'clock at night and there'd be no hot water. I think it also was a bonding experience, we all kind of worked quite well with it. Portugal was completely different cause in Portugal we all had our own rooms with verandas overlooking the swimming pool and it was nice and warm and it was lovely. The whole experience was great -- there were an awful lot of giggles.

A&E: How did you get along with the cast and crew?

SG: Casting doesn't just mean casting a person that's right for the part, it's casting people that you know are going to get on and work hard together. And I think Andrew Grieve is a very good judge of character and so is Andrew Benson. That's what they did -- they managed to put together a bunch of people that they knew would work very hard together. In the first two films a lot of the stuff we did, we actually did do it, like lifting the cows and sailing the boats. I think they chose people who they knew were not only good actors but characters that would get on with each other and I think we all did. It was Ioan's first big job and when he first got there obviously he was quite nervous. People like me and Paul Copley had sort of been around in the business for a few years, and I think we were hopefully a good support to him which is rather what the characters are, so it kind of mirrored the hirearchy of the film. Paul Copley is a very, very special actor whose worked a lot in England and commands tremendous respect from other actors. Same with Robert Lindsay, a wonderful bloke whose a wonderful actor and very funny off camera as well.

A&E: Do you still keep in touch with your friends from Hornblower?

SG: All the time. Paul and I talk to each other probably once every two weeks. Ioan and I spoke last week. Jamie and I see each other, we still play golf. Quite a few of us keep in touch. I keep in touch with Simon as well. We go out for a beer, maybe once a month or two, me and Ioan. Bonds and friendships were made. They were bound to form when you spend three months away from home with nobody else to talk to except yourselves. I met Dennis Lawson during the filming -- he was a guest actor in Episode 2. We got on very well. He then directed a play called Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs and cast me in it. Ewan MacGregor played Malcolm and the play was a huge success, earlier this year. We transfered to the West End for a short run, selling out. It was great fun and Dennis was a magnificent Director.

A&E: What other productions have you appeared in?

SG: I did a huge amount of theatre for years. I didn't do a great deal of film or television for my first four or five years out. I came to the states and did a Chicago Arts Festival with a company called the English Shakespeare Company and I toured the world with them for two years. I've done a lot of television. I don't quite know which of the shows aired in the U.S. Far from the Maddening Crowd certainly did. I played a character very different from Styles, which was lovely. I played somebody shy and bashful and slightly retiring. I just finished a movie, which will be coming out next year called Honest. The first-time director was Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. He wrote this film with a couple of other guys which is a very crazy 1960s black comedy set in the East End of London. The three leads girls are from a band called the All Saints. They've gone into acting and they're playing serious characters. A lot of people have asked whether it's like the Spice World movie because they're a girl band and it's quite the opposite really. They've got songs and their acting is to be taken seriously but it's been an absolute hoot to do. I played a Columbian drug dealer which is nice. I met Dave and he was talking about one particular character in it and I said "I don't think I'm right for that part, I think I'm right for this part", and he said "oh but he's Columbian." I said I lived in South America as a kid and I speak Spanish so I had my hair died black. That was a great, very mad, wild character.

A&E: What do like to do for fun?

SG: Anything and everything. I write with friends and sort of try to get things off the ground. I think it's harder to make it as a writer than it is as an actor, to be honest. I want to go into screenwriting more in the future. I've written a couple of screenplays. Promises were made but then nothing happened. I socialize a great deal with people. I go out to dinner quite a lot and socialize with my fellow actors and non-fellow actors. I love food and consider myself quite a good cook. I also like to play golf and paint.

A&E: Have you always been an actor?

SG: I've done lots of other jobs when I wasn't making any money as an actor but I've never had any other career. I went to University and studied modern history and then went to drama school for one year and then got my first job as an actor about nine months after that. Then I was very lucky for several years -- I worked in theatre non-stop and then I had a couple of lean years and I've been quite lucky for the last four or five years.

A&E: What inspired you to originally pursue acting?

SG: I've wanted to do this since I was a kid. It's instinctive. It's a cliché that you don't choose acting, it chooses you. I remember I was about thirteen or fourteen and I lived in South America and I did a play and I just remember being laughed at and I thought well that's nice. I don't think I've really changed my opinion. I went to University because my parents and I both realized you do need something to fall back on so I did take the sensible course. So far I have not had to fall back on the degree.