Picture courtesy of Sharpefilm.com

1. I suppose being a big show-off from an early age propelled me in to the wonderful world of school plays. As my father was a writer and radio broadcaster for the BBC world service, going into acting didn’t seem to be an outlandish path to follow. My family background provided another leg up when my dad got a job teaching at a liberal arts college in Massachusetts where I got a B.A. in acting and directing.
    
   My first job in the real world (though unpaid) was in a dance/play performed at an off-Broadway space called the Bessie Schonberg Theater.
   

2. 
   As I didn’t have a green card and wanted to avoid ending up in Hollywood playing only butlers and psychos or psycho-butlers, I came home to England. Seeing a notice for play auditions in Time Out magazine, I tried out and got the part in two short plays about artists and art, performed in, unsurprisingly, a Chelsea art gallery.
   

3. 
   So, technically those were my first two jobs done for little or no pay, my first proper paid work was a tour of schools doing educational plays.
   

1. Well, I did the whole waiter/bartender/restaurant manger bit until I struck lucky with a big beer commercial campaign and a national tour of Richard II & III with Derek Jacobi which forced me to quit the restaurant business.
   

2. 
   I was lucky that my family was always based in central London even after living in the states, so I would say I never really struggled that badly. The battle now is to find work, which I would say is a struggle equal if not more than the old days.

Picture courtesy of Jason Salkey

© www.riflemanharris.co.uk

1. Stage work, for me was always the most physically and indeed mentally draining aspect of acting, especially if you are a spear carrier required to adorn a platform on a rake stage. A position I was unfortunately in while performing Richard II in Aberdeen causing my back to spasm, bringing on a case of the cold sweats and shakes. Not a good thing to experience while on display at the Theatre Royal.
   

1. The first two years of Sharpe’s Crimean campaign were undoubtedly (as everyone probably knows by now) as hard and draining an experience as anyone would ever likely to encounter. Physically demanding in that we did long hours in heavy kit under searing heat and biting cold, barely nourished by the unpalatable and downright dangerous chow provided for us; and mentally draining from the uncertainly of the hazards, perils and menace that popped up from time to time in the newly dissolved Soviet Union. However, I’m ecstatic that I was a part of it and wouldn’t change one moment of it!

Picture courtesy of Jason Salkey

© www.riflemanharris.co.uk

1. The words ‘Chosen Men’ as far as I remember, were never mentioned in the audition for Sharpe. Very little of the part I was up for was talked about; certainly I saw no text and didn’t have to read or perform anything. The first director, Jim Goddard and I spoke of my past work, my life and my writer dad. This in retrospect could have swayed me in the direction of getting the part of the learned Chosen Man?
   

2. 
   Interestingly enough, Tom Clegg, director of all Sharpe episodes, made no secret of the fact he would have cast most of the Chosen Men and Harper differently. So, there but for the grace of Goddard, go I.

Picture courtesy of Jason Salkey

© www.riflemanharris.co.uk