Profiles

Starring in one of the major theatrical productions of Capital of Culture year, Oscar nominated Pete Postlethwaite is back in Liverpool at the Everyman, where his career began.

"I'm quietly terrified," says Pete, speaking between rehearsals at the Everyman.

"Exhilarated, very excited, thrilled about the prospect of trying to do something like that here in one of my favourite cities and back at the Everyman, the womb of my theatrical career."

Making the decision to take the role of Lear was one he hardly had to think about, "It was like all the stars aligned in the right place at the right time for the right reasons," says Pete.

"It was a no option thing, just ‘Yes, that’s what we do’"

Growing up in Warrington Pete says he leaned slightly more towards Liverpool than Manchester, "Much more to Liverpool really, my dad was from Bootle originally so there was that side to it.

"We all supported Liverpool, not Everton I’m afraid, and also we used to come to New Brighton places like that for a day out, going on the ferry across.

"And coming to the shops and stores, I remember someone telling me in Warrington ‘You know in Liverpool the stairs move by themselves in the shops’."

Returning to the Everyman is very much like coming home for Pete Postlethwaite who began his career alongside a host of now famous names at the theatre in the 1970's, "It was an exceptional time in anybody’s theatrical history, I think," says Pete.

"If you looked at that list of names now you’d say they would never be in the same room, building, county or country together, let alone in one small tatty little derelict theatre called the Everyman on Hope Street, it was an absolute pantheon of stars.

As Montague Tigg in Martin Chuzzlewit

"Now when you think of Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Julie Walters, George Costigan, Mathew Kelly, the list goes on and on.

"It was a phenomenal time, a creative inspirational, exciting, dangerous, provoking, illogical, magical mystery tour, really just brilliant.

"It taught me why I want to be an actor, so I’m ever grateful for that.

"There’s something uniquely Everyman about the Everyman. Ask me to define that and I’d be lost but it didn’t matter what the shape of the stage was, there was an ethos, a feeling, something in the air in the Everyman."

"I used to live in Canning Street and I remember standing the opposite side of the Philharmonic just thinking ‘This is it, this is what I want to do’ there’s no going back or forward."

In the 1980's Pete Postlethwaite returned to Liverpool to make a TV drama Coast to Coast, a programme that's fondly remembered by many viewers "It was a good piece of work, an American GI played by John Shea, Lenny Henry as this '60’s DJ, I played a character called Kecks who worked on the railway.

"A very bizarre piece, a very extraordinary soundtrack to it lots of funky music, it’s where I met my present wife in fact, all those years ago.”

And taking the role in Lear was an easy decision to make, "It was like all the stars aligned in the right place at the right time for the right reasons and it was a no option thing, just ‘Yes, that’s what we do’"

Despite King Lear being billed as one of the highlights of Capital of Culture year, Postlethwaite is very modest about his involvement in the production,

"I don’t think I can top the spider that’s for sure. The spider was fantastic.

"I don’t think I’m the highlight I think a production of King Lear in this theatre with the director Rupert Goold is the highlight.

"I’m just one of the team really, which is very exciting and very thrilling.

"If it turns out to be a highlight then I’ll be pleased.

"I’ve always been very well looked after in Liverpool, I’ve always felt very much at home here and it’s brilliant to be back."

Pete Postlethwaite plays King Lear at Liverpool Everyman from 30 October to 29 November, 2008.