Sam Riley’s ‘surreal’ scene in ‘Maleficent’

SAM RILEY said he and Angelina Jolie envisioned their characters as a “bickering old married couple.”

LOS ANGELES—Sam Riley was half-naked and cold in front of Angelina Jolie. The actor, disarming with his wry British humor in this recent interview, was recalling a “surreal” moment in a scene in “Maleficent” when Angelina Jolie turned his Diaval character from a raven into a man.

“I don’t have Brad’s (Pitt) body,” Sam said, his raspy voice and deadpan delivery making his statements sound funnier. (He cracked that he was wearing black “so you don’t see how much I am sweating underneath.”) “Not many men do so it was quite surreal, with strategically placed mud on my body and trying to work out what it would be like—a bird one minute and in a half-naked man’s body next.”

Not helping Sam, as he stood there semi-nude in front of Angelina, was that “it was cold in England that summer, as it always is.” He said with a grin, “And I was in front of the world’s biggest movie star and a huge crew. I wish she could have clicked her fingers (like Maleficent) and turn me back [into a bird]. It would have been good.”

He said, “There was a big discussion at the beginning about this scene when they turn me from a raven into a man, whether I would be wearing any clothes or not because it would be strange for Maleficent to click her fingers and, suddenly, a raven is wearing a leather jacket. I have done love scenes before but I never thought there would be that much discussion about how much of my bottom you could see in a Disney movie. Quite surreal. And that was early on in the process.”

Sam and Angelina’s scenes together are among the entertaining elements of director Robert Stromberg’s “Maleficent.” Diaval, saved by Maleficent from a farmer and his dogs, becomes her loyal companion and ally who can fly and spy for her. She turns him into a man or a raven when it suits her but she can also transform him into a horse, a dragon or a wolf.

“I know,” Sam said when asked if he wished that Diaval got to give Maleficent a true love’s kiss. Sam, who played Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac in “On the Road” but is best known for his acclaimed performance in “Control,” quipped, “I was hoping that Maleficent would get one (true love’s kiss) in the end. It didn’t work out.”

The two actors discussed their characters’ rapport. “We talked about Diaval and how, in the beginning, he was servile and terrified of her,” Sam said. “But we imagined that they spent every day with each other for the following 16 years so it would be fun to develop them like this slightly bickering old married couple… My character knows that she has more warmth than she’s willing to admit to herself.”

The singer-actor said of Angelina, “All actors say how lovely their costars are so it’s a bit boring. But with Angelina, I was very nervous about meeting her. You don’t meet movie stars all that often, at least in Berlin anyway. But she has a disarming manner.”

He added, “She is somebody who nurtures people. I certainly had that feeling when I was working with her. I felt protected by her. We were working together as a team, rather than as I am in the movie, the servant.” He cracked, “I am married so I am henpecked too sometimes.”

Now the father of a son with his wife, actor Alexandra Maria Lara, Sam also admired Angelina as a mother: “I am in awe of anybody who can have six children, knowing what it’s like to have one.”

Sam, who calls Berlin home these days, said sometimes he wished he was indeed a raven. “There are nights when I am away, which is a bit harder when you have a baby at home, when it would be nice if I could quickly fly from Los Angeles to Berlin for the night. Then come back to LA the next day.”

He joked, “And there are people that I have been curious to spy on.”

The boyish-looking actor recounted his beginnings in acting and singing. “I grew up in the north of England in Yorkshire County, just outside of a city called Leeds, which is a textiles town. I loved acting and used to take the games that children played much more seriously than my friends. I dressed up and spent two months as Lawrence of Arabia after watching the movie, which worried my parents for a while.”

Next David Bowie

That boy, who also loved to sing, honed his acting talents in his growing-up years. “I did a play with the National Youth Theatre when I was a teenager.” An agent saw his performance

THE BRITISH actor reveals he originally wanted to be a rock star. photo by ruben v. nepales

and approached him but, by that time, he had another ambition. “I wanted to be a rock star. I couldn’t really be the next David Bowie and be in (the soap opera) ‘Coronation Street.’”

He recalled, “I had a record contract that lasted for exactly one album. There’s a very famous music magazine called NME (New Musical Express), which has been going on since the 1950s. Somehow, we upset someone there a lot and he gave us one of the worst reviews the magazine had ever written in more than 50 years of publication.

“My record label dropped us almost the next day. We tried to persuade them that being the worst band in Britain was better than being an average band in Britain.”

What was his band’s name? “We were called 10,000 Things, which might also be why we weren’t very successful. We couldn’t make our minds up.”

Sam made up his mind after trying to be a rock star—he returned to his other passion, acting. “Five years later, I rang that agent up. I said, ‘Did my band finish! I want to try and be an actor.’ And amazingly, she said, ‘They are looking in Manchester next week for someone to play the singer of a cult British band called Joy Division.’ I had just been a singer for the last five years. I auditioned for it and got the part.

Best Actor prizes

Sam’s portrayal of Ian Curtis in Anton Corbijn’s acclaimed “Control” earned him Best Actor prizes. “Not a lot of people saw it but it was critically well-received,” said Sam, who will be seen next in Saul Dibb’s “Suite Française.”

His other credits include “The Dark Valley,” “Byzantium,” “Woman in Love,” “Brighton Rock” and “13.”

“I was in Cannes and Angelina saw that movie (“Control”). I also met my wife through this movie. So ‘Control’ really turned my life. It changed completely with that one phone call.

“I was 26 and I have never been an actor. I am 34 now. I have been an actor since then and married to my first costar, which is a cliché, I know. More or less, that first acting job instigated every job since. Every director I had worked with had seen that first film, liked it and that was the case with this role as well.”

(E-mail the columnist at [email protected]. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)