Most moviegoers probably first became familiar with Roth for a film in which he spent the majority of its 90 minutes lying in a pool of his own blood. Although the British actor spent 10 years building up a solid résumé of work with such respected directors as Mike Leigh (Meantime), Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover), and Robert Altman (playing Vincent in Vincent and Theo) back home, it was Quentin Tarantino's brazen, unapologetically gory Reservoir Dogs that introduced the actor to American audiences. Though Roth was originally asked to look at the roles of Mr. Pink and Mr. Blonde, he asked for the opportunity to portray Mr. Orange, the lone honorable man among thieves. "Quentin said, 'I never thought of that,' " Roth recalls of their first meeting. But the actor convinced him.
The 47-year-old Roth has a lengthy history of doing things his way. He's a contemporary of his friend Gary Oldman; their performances share a steely intensity, but their careers took different directions. "Gary went more to the studio stuff, and I went straight down the independent road," Roth notes. That road included singing and dancing in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You and an Oscar nomination for Roth's portrayal of the deliciously wicked nobleman Archibald Cunningham in Rob Roy.
In recent years, Roth has been less visible on screen. This could be because he took two years off to make and promote The War Zone, his directorial debut. It could also have something to do with his refusal to audition for roles. Or it might just be that the actor is drawn to nonmainstream material, choosing parts based less on box office potential and more on what fascinates him.
This is not to say he hasn't dabbled in studio fare: He managed to be intimidating while glowering behind a gorilla mask in Planet of the Apes and was nearly unrecognizable in the 2005 remake of Dark Water. And in June, Roth will be seen on screen in The Incredible Hulk as supervillain Emil Blonsky, aka the Abomination, in Marvel's big-budget reboot of the Incredible Hulk franchise.
Roth has been on a bit of a remake roll, having recently appeared in Michael Haneke's U.S. version of his German film Funny Games, playing a privileged husband and father brutally terrorized by a sadistic duo. That performance, along with Roth's turn last year in Francis Ford Coppola's noble failure—at least at the box office—Youth Without Youth, serves as a strong reminder that the actor is equally adept at playing nice.
Back Stage: I understand you developed your facility for accents at an early age?
Tim Roth: I went to a school in a tough area and was coming from the background of a teacher and a journalist. We weren't wealthy, but we didn't have the accent appropriate to the area. So very quickly you had to make an effort to fit in or you were going to get beaten every day. So within a few days, I changed to a different accent.
Back Stage: Do you ever work with coaches?
Roth: When I do a dialect, I do. There are many different American dialects. If you slip in your accent, you only want to slip to the edge of the state, not across it. And a place like New York has many different accents in it, and they get really pissy if you mess up.
So the aim is always to be as specific as possible. The first time I did American was a Bronx accent for Jumpin' at the Boneyard. I made an effort to play American characters so it would confuse casting directors and I wouldn't have to be constantly going through that "Oh, can he do an accent? I don't know. Let's give it to someone who can." And they didn't know who I was, so it was easy to convince them I was American. A lot of them thought I was.
Back Stage: Why did you make the decision to come to America?
Roth: I was unemployed. I was doing nothing. I got a job in Australia, of all places, in a not very good film, and part of the deal was I would get a first-class ticket around the world. I could stop wherever I wanted and visit as long as I wanted. When I got to Australia to do this film, I was called by Jeff Stanzler, who was directing Jumpin' at the Boneyard in the Bronx. So I didn't get to go around the world; I got to go to the Bronx. Jeff was the one who really brought me to the States. He saw me in Vincent and Theo and asked me to do his film.
Back Stage: Did you still stay and finish the bad Australian movie?
Roth: I did do the bad Australian movie; I won't tell you what it's called. But, yeah, it was pretty bad. By that I mean I was bad in it. I've never seen it.
Back Stage: I understand that's common for you: You make a habit of not seeing your movies.
Roth: Pretty much. I don't watch my movies. I've made a couple of exceptions to that rule, but I started that about six or seven years ago. It's quite good to do that, especially when you have to deal with journalists and they ask you, "What did you think of the film?" You can say, "I don't know; I haven't seen it. What do you think?" I have a policy never to read reviews or interviews. So you can say whatever you want. And it's great because [I] can concentrate just on the work.
Back Stage: With the exception of a big summer movie like The Incredible Hulk, it seems that you rarely do studio films. Is that a conscious choice?
Roth: I may have done some by accident. For example, Dark Water was a studio film, but that was incidental. Walter [Salles] called me, and when Walter calls, you go. It wouldn't have mattered if it was $10 in a backyard. Planet of the Apes was a similar situation because of Tim Burton. You just go where they are. The Hulk was a chance to do a film that my kids could go and see, as opposed to one they can't. They've seen maybe two of my films. The little ones are 11 and 12, and they can't go see Funny Games. I mean, I can't go see Funny Games. I wanted to do something they can enjoy.
Back Stage: When you're doing a remake like Dark Water or Funny Games, do you go back and watch the original films?
Roth: No. In the case of Funny Games, I started to. It's a very difficult script; it's a very complicated film that's supposed to work on so many levels, and I hope that it does. It's about how we react to violence on screen. I started reading the script, and I rejected it. And my agent said, "No, this is a good thing. You should look at this." He sent me over a disc, and I kind of watched it, but I could see what Michael was going for. And I also saw what he missed, which I think he did to a certain extent in the first film. But it's also a film that comes out of a different culture. So I felt, "Okay, maybe I should meet him." And I did, and he's a great guy. I don't know if the film works, so I suppose it's up to you guys to figure out if it does. It was a tough shoot—very difficult and very demanding. I thought it was a good experience for me as an actor; it stretched me a bit, which is good.
Back Stage: So do you approach a film like The Incredible Hulk with the same seriousness you would approach something like Funny Games?
Roth: Funny Games was definitely one of those ones where you finish the day you put it to bed and you don't think about it again. I did get myself into quite an uproar on that one. We shot in sequence, and your days are pretty much misery from the moment you walk in. But The Hulk was like an old-time movie to me. It was corny and fun and much lighter to do. It was great to go into that after doing so many heavy things. That said, I took it very seriously and spent a lot of time trying to make the character interesting. The problem is, as much as you can come up with an idea that everyone on the creative side thinks is fun, some businessman on the other end of the phone is going to say no. And you have absolutely no recourse whatsoever. You're screwed. The arguments were pretty much done before I came to shooting. Once you're in, you're in, and you get away with what you can. But I had a great time. I was making a film of my own. I didn't have to say much, and I didn't have to deal with politics.
Back Stage: And what was your film about?
Roth: It's about this fascinating and dashing character called Blonsky. [Laughs.] I was excited to be a part of it. I used to get these comic books as a kid, every Saturday. When you look at the dialogue in the script, sometimes you think, "Oh my God, do I have to say it that way?" Then you look at the comic books and go, "Oh, yeah, I do." So you have to figure out a way to be honest and keep the integrity of the actual comic itself but keep your own integrity intact, which is kind of tricky.
Back Stage: With The Incredible Hulk, you're playing a villain, which few actors do better than you. But were you ever concerned with getting typecast?
Roth: I never worried about it. I was choosing to do things that were interesting to me. I never thought of them as bad guys—to be honest with you, I thought they were the good guys—unless they're somebody who knows they're a bad guy, which is interesting to me too.
Back Stage: So in your mind, where does someone like Cunningham in Rob Roy fall?
Roth: Oh, he's a good guy, completely, through and through. Everybody else is deluded. They don't understand his wonder.
Back Stage: Did you ever have to fight typecasting?
Roth: There were times where I was looking at something else and people would say, "Well, we've never seen you do this kind of character, so we're going to go with someone safer." That would piss me off. The thing is, people remember bad guys, and that's the problem. You don't often remember the good guy.
Back Stage: So how do you make a good guy interesting?
Roth: That's what we're all trying to work out most of the time. Everyone's got their dark side, and the most interesting heroes are the ones with a twinkle in their eye that wear their dark side on their sleeve. Even going back to Jimmy Stewart, if you look at something like It's a Wonderful Life, it's pretty dark as hell. He's one of my favorite actors. He managed to sew in all kinds of weirdness into his good guys. And he's the best screen kisser, by the way. He devours women. Worst screen kisser: Cary Grant. Best screen kisser: Jimmy Stewart.
Back Stage: Is it true you won't audition?
Roth: No, I won't, but I'll meet anybody. Anybody. The reason I stopped doing readings in England, even before I came out here, was at the time I was really crap at it—really, really bad. So I made a decision for myself, which probably cost me a lot of work, to just never do it again. The reason I could do that, I felt, was I had done some work, and if they wanted to see if I could speak or act, they could go see the films. Why should I have to go through that embarrassment?
Back Stage: Do you remember the day you made the decision to never audition again?
Roth: I went to an audition for a commercial because I was really unemployed for a long time. It was obnoxious, and I thought, "I don't have to do this." My idea was I'll lose 50 percent of the work by auditioning and I'll lose 50 percent by not auditioning, so what the fuck? It came about out of embarrassment, and I've stuck to it. And it's served me all right. When I've auditioned actors as a director, I've always thought the reading was absolutely irrelevant. It's flawed for me, because there's many, many times I've worked with an actor who showed up on the set and didn't have a clue and I'll turn to the director and he'll say, "Well, it was a really good audition." That happens more often than I care to count.
Back Stage: How do directors respond to your refusal to read?
Roth: People have been very nice about it, actually. I remember meeting with Spielberg. I didn't like being on camera, and he had cameras set up around the table when I walked in, and he turned them all off. He was very sweet, such a nice guy. He was casting both Schindler's List and Jurassic Park. He said to me, "Do you like dinosaurs?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Can you do a German accent?" I said, "Depends which region." And that was about it. It was very brief. I've never worked with him, so maybe it backfired.
Back Stage: You've worked with so many amazing filmmakers, and you directed a film. What do you think makes a good director?
Roth: I don't know. It's easier to talk about bad directors, really. You can get taken down the wrong road by people. The worst thing in the world is when you go to a director when a scene isn't working and you say, "Help me out here," and they've got nothing. Quite often they get angry because they're trying to cover for themselves. That was my fear, that I would turn up on set with nothing to offer as a director. Good directors are rare. They will take you on a journey, and you'll jump in front of a bullet for them by the end of it.