Articles/Interviews

You wouldn't give the face house-room - 'I've got a face like a dustbin,' he has said - but the talent, that's a different matter, It is talent, not looks, which has got Oliver Reed to the top. Witness his latest film, MGM's Sitting Target, and you'll see what I mean.

Ollie plays a vengeful murderer in this taut thriller. And remembering even some of his most villainous roles, this character takes the top prize as the most terrifying. An 18-carat nasty, if ever there was one. Even so, Ollie has a thing about 'bad men'. He believes even the worst thugs are not all bad.

'I don't think any of the characters I've played in films - and I've played some shockers - have been evil all the way through,' he says. 'They wouldn't be believable if they were only one colour, with no light or shade.'

'I've never tried the part of a credibly evil man before. I say "credible" because the murderer I play in Sitting Target, like most men, also has a sad, pathetic side to him. Evil is not, in my view, an abstraction; it is compounded of some very human flaws. The character play in Sitting Target is, fact, a man sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.'

'It's a different kind of role for me', says Ollie, 'a different villain. But then, I think of all parts as being different. Nothing is exactly the same. No matter how small a role, you can always give it something that makes it special.'

Ollie got plenty of opportunity, early in his career, to make the most of a small bone. Like many actors, he started off in parts you would be likely to miss if you sneezed. Then came a period of films which didn't take him back - but they didn't take him forward either. Now he's a star, he's not afraid to admit it.

'Look, I'm not going to tell anyone that what success I have achieved has happened by accident. I've been through misery and I've worked like mad. There were times in those early days when I felt like chucking it all in - but I didn't.'

'The marvellous thing was that when the chance came, I was ready. I knew what to do, what it was all about. I'd been through the mill and, when I realised what I had learned, I knew it was worth it.'

Ollie gained his early experience in films like The Angry Silence and The League of Gentlemen. He played tiny parts but they were with the right kind of people.

'I listened and I watched and I learned,' he says. 'It was all fascinating.'

As it happens, Oliver was taking a bit of a risk starting off his career in this way. Most British actors go through a kind of classical training, beginning with a three-year course at one of the several drama schools, going on to repertory and then, maybe, a West End play or television.

Not Ollie.

'My army career was drama school enough for me,' he says with a grin.' After the army I decided to go to the nearest film set and sign on as an extra. It wasn't that I thought drama school couldn't teach me anything. I just felt it wasn't, for me anyway, the best way to learn.'

From bit parts Ollie progressed to Hammer horrors. He also made a couple of films, The System and The Party's Over, which should have done more for him than they did.

It was, however, with The Trap (made in 1965) that he really arrived. Starring with Rita Tushingham, he made a tremendous impact as the rough, tough, snarling backwoodsman. As one critic said: 'I can think of no other British actor who could have played the part as well. Reed is magnificent.'

Ollie followed The Trap with The Shuttered Room, The Jokers and I'll Never Forget What's 'Is Name. It was these productions - along with The Assassination Bureau and Hannibal Brooks - which marked Ollie as an actor of great range and versatility. He was on his way to stardom. With Women In Love he had arrived. Although Women In Love made a great impact on the public, it was another Ken Russell film, The Devils, which really set London - and many other places! - alight. The critical reaction to The Devils, which varied from the puzzled to the vitriolic, has somewhat angered Ollie.

'You would think from the critics' hostility that Ken Russell had tried to pull off some obscene hoax,' he says. 'On the contrary, the film is, I think, an utterly serious attempt to understand the nature of religious and political persecution. It is not in any way exaggerated. If anything, the horrors perpetrated in Loudun in the 17th century were worse than Russell has chosen to show.'

'The character of the priest was a marvellous one to act. Ken Russell's brother-in-law is an historian and he helped me research Grandier's life, with particular reference to his thesis in celibacy.' 'The people of Loudun loved him. He walked among the plague victims and comforted them. I started to play him as a priest and realised that he was a politician.'

In the film he says, 'I have loved women and enjoyed power, but I shall never be the Devil's boy - I haven't got the humility.'

Ollie feels passionately about The Devils. Indeed, he gets completely involved in any part he is playing. Which is what helps make him such a good actor. But he does not intend to let his career stand still as he feels it might by merely acting.

'I'd like to be able to initiate films myself,' he says. 'I'd like to produce and direct. I'm not interested in glory any more - just independence.'