DAMIAN: I was so confrontational as a child, my mother took me to the family
doctor and said: “It’s either him or me. One of us has got to
go.” I just remember feeling fretful — she found me impossible.
If I was challenged, I felt I was being backed into a corner, metaphorically
and sometimes physically. Gareth was a far cleverer child than I was. Less
emotionally direct. He was much better at nodding, saying yes, then sliding
off in his own direction. I remember one fight — I was about 10 and he was
eight — when I had been particularly pedantic and annoying. Suddenly he
started pummelling me with his fists, so I whacked him and he went down like
a sack of potatoes, screaming his head off. Mum appeared and saw little
Gareth, crumpled in a heap, wailing, but with one eye open, as always, to
see what the reaction would be. She gave me this almighty clout around my
head, the only time she ever hit me, and I ran down Abbey Road, saying I was
never coming back. Afterwards I expected her to take me in her arms and say
she was sorry. Instead she sat me down and gave me a right talking to. She’d
had enough, I suppose.
We’re a strong, loud, intelligent, opinionated family. The Sunday-lunch table
was always an epicentre of activity, where everyone was encouraged to talk
and air their ideas. Because we were away at boarding school a lot of the
time, there was a lot of questioning when we came home. Information and
emotional responses were constantly demanded of us. Gareth was into gadgets
and fads, which never lasted longer than a few months. I remember him saying
at one point: “I want to be a lawyer.” And my parents, in a very loving way,
asked him to substantiate what he’d said — I think they actually used that
word. Suddenly, Gareth was expected to give weight to this rather transient
thought, and he resented that. He felt he’d rather not say anything than
have to explain himself.
It was the same when we went to a play or a movie. We’d all sit around
afterwards discussing what we thought the themes were, and Gareth would go:
“Why do we have to look for the meaning in everything? Can’t we just enjoy
it?” I think he found it all a bit tiring.
Mum always wanted to know how we were and what we were feeling. It was quite a
complex relationship, and Gareth slightly withdrew from that. If you’re the
fourth child of two very dynamic parents, maybe it’s easier not to compete.
Our mother was an incredibly strong woman, extremely opinionated, quite
controlling, but hugely loving and giving, and at times very needy of love.
She was sort of all-encompassing and a very dominant figure in our lives. I
think Gareth’s relationship with her eventually became less intense, a bit
simpler, whereas mine was more immature. I still fought with her over
everything. What I regret most about Mum dying [in a car crash in 2001] is
not fully realising a friendship with her.
When Gareth is sitting around a table in a pub with friends, he naturally
takes centre stage, but it’s not something he consciously seeks. He’s
incredibly entertaining and amusing, but there’s a softness about him and a
quietness, which means he doesn’t impose himself. Gareth and I have got
closer and closer as we’ve got older. It’s like that moment when you first
see your parents as real people and have to decide whether you like them or
not. It’s quite daunting. For a long time I thought we were much more
similar than Gareth thought we were. He’s been a bit more perceptive than I
have. I don’t think I’d stopped and thought about quite how many resentments
he’d built up over the years. If you’re the youngest of a big, innately
ambitious family, you inherit so much tradition, it’s almost expected that
you fall in line. For a long time, Gareth just didn’t want to. He felt
different and he saw the world a bit differently.
He was a bit more of a maverick, less clubbable than the rest of us, and not
so easily drawn into the group. I’d always thought, without examining it too
much: “We’re great mates and we’ve always got on.” But it’s become apparent
from things Gareth has said over the last few years that he’s wanted to say:
“Yeah, we do get on, but let me tell you, there have been times when I’ve
felt incredibly distanced from the family and you and your achievements.”
I feel hugely protective of Gareth — I think I always have — and very
nurturing of him. We shared a flat when I was filming Band of Brothers, and
every day he’d get up and write, which must have been incredibly hard.
Confidence is related to your recent successes, and if you’re not published
or produced it’s really difficult to maintain a sense of entitlement. When
The Baker was finally made, he thrived. As a director he was humble and
responsive and he listened, and the set was a very happy place.
Before I married, he made it clear that he doesn’t have the same nostalgic,
sentimental attachments that I have, because he has his own family now. I
understand that, but I think Gareth has a habit of resisting family
gatherings, then regretting it. I think he’s beginning to realise that,
okay, we are loud and opinionated, and we do all talk over each other. But
we’re also a really nice, fully formed, functional family.
GARETH: Damian was a bit of a golden boy at school. He was in a different
house from me, so we didn’t see that much of each other, but I liked to
think he was looking out for me. At home we were great mates, with a
tendency to violence. We used to ride round on our Grifter bikes, solving
mysteries. We adopted these personae — we were Poncherello and Baker from
the California Highway Patrol, or we were Bob and Charlie, or Pete and Dave,
depending on how we felt. Ultimately he had the final say, by virtue of the
fact that he could punch me up if I didn’t do what he said. We had some
pretty ferocious fights. Like most boys, there were no boundaries, we really
used to go for it. At that point I was the actor — I knew how to get him
into trouble. He’d give me a nudge, I’d fall to the ground screaming, and
Mum would come racing out saying: “What have you done to your little
brother?”
We were a very tightknit family, and when we were home from school there were
a lot of big, noisy lunches, with everyone talking, not a lot of listening.
And it’s still like that. My wife finds it quite difficult. If you like to
have a two-way conversation, you’re a bit stuck, really. As a child, you
were just waiting for the last person to shut up so you could have your say.
Damian was very combative and he was always in the thick of it. I’d get
sulky and moan that I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Even now, if I’m
sitting round a lunch table with another family and there’s a silence, I
feel deeply uncomfortable and get prickly heat all up my neck, because in
our house that would never happen.
Damian went to Guildhall and I went to Edinburgh [University], and we kind of
reconnected when I came down to London and we shared a flat in Kilburn. But
we didn’t really know each other as adults, and it was a bit weird to begin
with. We had all that history, but we hadn’t really crossed paths for six
years. Damian’s days were spent lounging round in his dressing gown, getting
ready to go to the theatre in the evening, and mine were spent doing a range
of crappy jobs. I worked in telesales and bars, constantly having ideas but
never settling on one. I travelled a lot. I felt I needed to get away from
the family to be my own person, and I’d make for the border at the
drop of a hat.
Damian was becoming successful quite quickly. He was 23 when he did Hamlet in
Regent’s Park. I’ve always loved being part of that success, you know, going
to the shows and saying: “Yeah, that’s my brother.” But there was
a moment when I thought: “Why have I gone into an area of work where I’m
going to end up being unfavourably compared?” Writing is something that
doesn’t come easily to me. I’m naturally gregarious, and it took
a few years to grasp that my future was going to involve spending a lot of
time in a room on my own.
Damian never had that struggle, as far as I can tell. He’s had six or seven
months out of work, but other than that it’s been pretty constant. It kind
of helped me, actually, because with everyone focused on Damian being starry
I could slip under the radar and quietly get on with my own thing. I was
working in a pub when I got a call from a production company who wanted to
option The Baker, and I said: “Guys, I quit.” I really regretted that
because I needed the money. It took four months to get a meeting, and then
they wanted rewrites. It was another six years before the film finally got
made. I was an ingénu. I knew nothing.
Having lived together for three years and rebonded, getting on set with Damian
was like playing again. I’d come over to give him a note after a take, and
he’d practically know what I was going to say. He knows when I’m not happy
and I can tell by looking at him when he’s about to lose it. But it was a
tantrum-free set. We shared quarters in a converted monastery in the Wye
valley, and every night one of us would be cooking up pasta and sticking the
rushes on. We didn’t even pay him — well, a fraction of his market value.
Damian spends a lot of time in LA. Up until now his world has been quite
orderly and glamorous, but I don’t think you can be that glamorous when
you’ve got kids. It’s “Welcome to milk and vomit and no sleep,” and I’ve
watched him slowly crumble. I went through it all before him — I sent him a
script I wrote just after my last daughter was born, and he said: “Yeah, it
starts off okay, then it all gets a bit surreal.” It’s a bit of a bind
trying to be funny on three hours’ sleep.
On some level, Damian and I have become much closer. Not in a way that we ever
talk about, but he definitely has it in mind to look after me. I’m only
realising now that he’s had my interests somewhere in mind for a long time, even
if it’s just generally wondering what he can do to help. I’m just the
spoilt, selfish little brother who thinks only about himself. It’s a
stereotype, isn’t it? But maybe it’s one I fit into slightly better than I
thought.
Interviews: Caroline Scott.
Portrait by Michael Grieve
