Paterson Joseph goes deliciously rogue in Wonka.
Image: Faye Thomas.
Paterson Joseph is a well-known face on British television from his appearances in Peep Show, Vigil and Boat Story, as well as an award-winning writer and star of films such as Æon Flux and The Beach. But Wonka, the new musical comedy telling the origin story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, gives him his biggest movie role to date as chocolatier Arthur Slugworth.
Joseph first made his name on the stage and he admits that he never really expected to end up on screen, given his experience of filming videos at drama school. “I looked awful, my acting was over the top, big facial expressions, very physical.” However, television work soon started to come in and “I was the most surprised person on the planet. I had no plan. My goal was just to do good work, and not have to do proper work like my dad did, like plastering and things.” Now that he’s in a position to choose which roles he accepts, that decision is always guided by character rather than genre. “If it was a character that had some sort of transformation, or at least had a journey, that’s what I’d be looking for. I don’t think I have a preference about what kind of script it would be, as long as it had humanity in it.” But he also looks for a more instinctive, surprisingly visceral response to a script: “I also wait for a clench as well – and I do mean clench like your butt clenches – when somebody offers you something. Then I know that that’s a good role because you’ve never done that before, so you’re not sure if you could execute that. That to me is like, ‘Well then, you’d better do it’ – and most of the time it’s worked out.”
Director Paul King cast Joseph in Wonka having previously worked with him on 2014’s Paddington, although Joseph’s performance as the Dapper Young Hatter, who tells Paddington where his hat has come from, sadly didn’t make it to the final cut. “I loved filming that, with Sally Hawkins [with whom he was also reunited in Wonka].” But when he went to see it on its release – “I snuck into a cinema in Manchester, trying not to look like a dodgy bloke because I was on my own” – Jim Broadbent’s Mr Gruber delivered the crucial information instead. “I called the agent to say, ‘Why was I not told I was cut? I’m really upset!’ and then I got a message from Paul King to say, ‘Sorry, I’ve heard you just found out. I sent you a message three months ago.’ I looked in the junk mail and there it was: ‘You had to be cut because they didn’t have any room.’” Seven years later, while out in South Africa filming Noughts + Crosses, he got a call from King offering him the villainous Slugworth. “I don’t mean he’s given me the part out of guilt – nobody does anybody favours like that – but it felt like the universe was going, ‘Look, that thing didn’t happen … but here’s an even nicer thing.’”
“You come out, playing it really cool, like, ‘Yeah, just laid down some tracks. I know you’re watching me.’ There was a little moment of being a bit of a wanker, but it was really enjoyable to watch people try to figure out who you were”
He describes King as “a very thoughtful, inspired creator. You’ll have his storyboard, but he’ll allow things on set that might have been accidents to become something that we build on. I think that’s why all the actors love working with him, because he’s a genuine lover of actors. He knows what we’re doing, he enjoys watching what we’re doing and he respects us – and at the same time he loves to take the piss out of us. An actor’s ideal is the sort of yin and yang of ‘Take me seriously in my craft but have fun with me. Be joking and bantering but, when I’m doing my thing, I want you to take it seriously.’ He’s got that down to a tee.” Joseph can’t resist adding mischievously, “He always wears these really fluffy jumpers and whenever I see him I’m always wanting to go in for a hug. I don’t even know if he’s a hugger – too bad, he shouldn’t wear those fluffy jumpers.”
Image: Warner Bros. Styling: Holly Macnaghten. Grooming: Carlos Ferraz.
Doing a musical tapped into childhood nostalgia for Joseph, who remembers watching Singin’ in the Rain with his dad. “That’s why I really love the old musicals. The music was clever, the lyrics were poetic and clever. I’m not particularly into dark modern musicals: I hear wonderful things about them, but they’ve never grabbed me. So I’m an old musical guy and that will probably be my Christmas tradition now, to dig out all these old musical movies and show them to my partner, who didn’t grow up with that tradition at all.”
In spite of his fondness for the genre, Joseph isn’t usually called on to do singing and dancing on screen. “I’ve not done a musical ever. So I was terrified – it’s a vulnerable thing to open up and sing, it really is.” But the opportunity to record at Abbey Road was a highlight – especially knowing that there would be people on the street outside waiting for someone famous to emerge. “You come out, playing it really cool, like, ‘Yeah, just laid down some tracks. I know you’re watching me.’ There was a little moment of being a bit of a wanker, but it was really enjoyable to watch people try to figure out who you were.” He also describes himself as an amateur when it comes to dancing, crediting the “brilliant” choreographer and his co-stars – Keegan-Michael Key, Mathew Baynton and Matt Lucas – with bringing it all together to create an effortlessly comic scene. “Mat Baynton is a dab hand; he was like Fred Astaire there. I got very, very lucky with who I was doing it with. We’re all over the top, everybody’s over the top, apart from Timmy [Chalamet] and Calah Lane. There was a cohort of these funny people around you, so it’s kind of easy.”
Wonka is in UK cinemas on Friday 8th December.
Author: Rachel Goodyear