Why Britannia still rules the stage - part 3
In their prime
Centre stage
14 Toby Stephens
Age: 38
Training: Lamda
Currently in: Pinter's Betrayal at the Donmar.
Inspiration: Paul Scofield. 'Because he has enormous soul and depth, as well as being incredibly humorous.'
Big break: Being cast as Coriolanus at the RSC aged 24. 'I was very young for it. The director David Thacker and Adrian Noble, who ran the RSC, took a huge gamble.'
Career high: 'There were things about playing Hamlet that can never be replaced by any other part.'
Favourite play: Macbeth. 'It's beautifully wrought and packs an enormous punch.'
Favourite theatre: The Swan in Stratford. 'It's a very beautiful theatre and you feel very close to the audience. You can pitch a performance anywhere between very intimate and very full-on.'
Funniest thing ever written about me: 'I was in New York playing Hippolytus in Phaedre, and I was rather heavy at the time. The New York Times wrote: "Toby Stephens' Hippolytus needs to get on the Stairmaster."'
Why is British acting so good? 'We have the best theatre in the world. We cover every area, we're innovative and we have the best writing, past and present, as well as these great organs like the National and the Royal Court. It's sad that it's not invested in as it could be. Perhaps the fact we have to struggle is one of the things that make us good, though I wish we didn't have to struggle so hard - American acting doesn't have the same depth - only a tiny fraction of the work there is in theatre. However, a lot of British actors are now going straight into TV and doing Hollyoaks, and that's very sad. '
15 Samuel West
Age: 40
Training: Oxford University. No formal acting training.
Currently in: Pinter's Betrayal at the Donmar. Will also direct Patrick Marber's Dealer's Choice at the Menier in October.
Hero: 'Of my generation, Stephen Dillane; intelligent, subtle, at home in a wide variety of styles, and very nice to work with.'
Big break: 'Playing Hamlet for the RSC. It's a major step in any actor's career.'
Career high: 'Saying "30 seconds to computer achieving full power status" in Doctor Who.'
Career low: 'I didn't work for six months after Howards End won its four Oscars.'
Favourite play: 'At the moment, Stoppard's Arcadia. I was in the first ever production. I feel fortunate to have been in Arcadia and Betrayal - they're in the top three postwar plays in English.'
Favourite theatre: The National. 'It is redefining the kind of theatre getting shown in the capital.'
What I'd love to do: 'I get called a classical actor, which means people don't think of you for certain plays. I'd love to do more new work. '
Why is British acting so good? 'Americans often say, "You British are so uptight", but I often want to say, "Yes but that's what makes us interesting". English actors aren't afraid to play people who are unattractive, particularly in films. You win Oscars for playing the Hannibal Lecters.'
16 Anastasia Hille
Age: 41
Training: Drama Centre
Coming up: Good, Vicente Amorim's film based on the play by CP Taylor.
Big break: 'Every time anyone gives me a job I always think it's a break. We're very lucky to do the job that we do.'
Favourite play: ' I'm fascinated by devised theatre. I know actors who have this list of parts they must knock on the head before they die, and I am sorry about missing Juliet when I was young.'
Are you proud to be British? 'When I worked in America, actors were frightened of me - "You're a British actor, you must be good" - and that shocked me. If you've done any classical British acting here, people regard that highly everywhere, so it's a bonus. '
Why is British acting so good? 'Not being quite able to say what you feel is a perfect position to start from. If you can't articulate your emotions clearly, going round the houses and describing them in other ways is rather poetic. That is a very British quality, and when we do open up, fireworks happen.'
17 Hugh Bonneville
Age: 43
Training: National Youth Theatre, Cambridge
Coming up: 'I'm playing a BBC boss in a TV play about Mary Whitehouse with Julie Walters.' I recently did a French film directed by Jackie Oudney with Anne-Marie Duff about the differences between French and English people. And Tom Hollander and I are also doing a project called Freezing for Channel 4 as part of a quartet of standalone comedies.'
Big break: 'Notting Hill. Two weeks before it opened, I couldn't get an audition for anything; two weeks after it opened, I could. That kind of break can have very little to do with being an actor and more to do with where you are on the chessboard.'
Hero: 'Michael Bates, who was in Last of the Summer Wine and It Ain't Half Hot Mum playing Rangi Ram. He controversially blacked up for that part. I remember creeping into a theatre one night to see him in the curtain call.'
Career high: 'A recent thing on BBC4 called Diary of a Nobody. It was two hours of me talking to a camera like an Alan Bennett monologue. It was unexpected, challenging and out of my comfort zone. It took me a long time to learn it and get it right. I was scared doing it but I didn't hide behind the sofa when I saw the result. So it was a highlight, even though only about three people saw it on BBC4.'
18 Dervla Kirwan
Age: 35
Training: No formal training. Offered a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama but turned it down.
Currently in: Pinter's Betrayal at the Donmar; True Dare Kiss, Debbie Horsfield's drama for BBC.
Heroes: 'I was influenced by British TV as a girl, especially by Brideshead Revisited. And I would always try to see Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren on stage.'
What's great about British theatre? 'We have brilliant actors, writers and directors. I wish we were more proud of that and weren't so bloody English about it. Great British talent is something to be celebrated.'
19 Tom Hollander
Age: 39
Training: National Youth Theatre
Coming up: The Company, a series on BBC2 about the CIA; The Golden Age, the sequel to Elizabeth, directed by Shekhar Kapur and opening in October; and the TV movie Freezing, to be aired on BBC2 next Christmas. He has just finished in Landscape with Weapon at the National Theatre, and is in Pirates of the Caribbean 3.
Big break: 'Cheek by Jowl's As You Like It, and Way of the World at the Lyric Hammersmith, for which I won the Charleson award.'
Career high: 'Working with Declan Donnellan in As You Like It. We were all in our twenties, touring the world. Everyone loved the show, whatever language we were performing in. Donnellan is a teacher. He tells you what acting is.'
Favourite theatre: 'A theatre where we did As You Like It in Brazil. It was an 18th century Spanish building in a forest with no roof. During the garden and forest scenes butterflies flew in and settled on our shoulders.'
Hero: 'Mark Rylance - he is utterly brilliant.'
Are you proud to be British? 'My father was a refugee from central Europe at the start of the war. England helped his family survive so I don't feel chippy about being proud to be British.'
20 Matthew Macfadyen
Age: 32
Training: Rada
Coming up: The Pain and the Itch at the Royal Court and a slew of films: Frank Oz's Death at a Funeral; Incendiary, directed by Bridget Jones director Sharon Maguire and also starring Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor; and Ron Howard's screen version of Frost/Nixon, in which Macfadyen plays John Birt.
Heroes: 'A whole clutch of British stage actors, like Michael Gambon. I got addicted to actors' biographies as a teenager and devoured Olivier, Gielgud and Guinness. I was fascinated by them and also the American actors like Pacino and de Niro.'
Career high: 'A touring production of Much Ado About Nothing with Cheek By Jowl; that was great fun.'
Why is British acting so good? 'I think it comes from the theatre. I think it comes from doing a lot, playing a lot of different houses and stretching different muscles. If you've got a rich history, that can't help but inform you as an actor, and the good drama schools are of a very high standard. However, I'm wary of the romanticised idea that Brits have got this very strong theatrical tradition and Americans only do TV and film, and somehow they're not as good or as rounded. I think that was the case for a bit, but it's not true any more.'
21 Fiona Shaw
Age: 48
Training: Cork University, read philosophy. Rada.
Coming up: Tour of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, which will include, extraordinarily, performing in a Greek amphitheatre, in Epidaurus.
Big breaks: Julia in Sheridan's The Rivals at the National. 'I was cheating - I hadn't done the right number of weeks to be an Equity member.' Won the Bancroft gold medal at Rada for her Virginia Woolf in Edna O'Brien's play.
Favourite play: Hedda Gabler
Inspiration: 'What excites me now is that I hang around with artists. I love the fusion, the sense that art can transform theatre, that everyone is reaching forward for a new thing. And also that there cannot be any art without nature. The way the birds sing, we talk. British actors are tremendous with language.'
22 Frances Barber
Age: 49
Training: Bangor and Cardiff universities: English, drama and theatre studies.
Big break: 'Mike Bradwell of Hull Truck gave me my first professional job, for which I am eternally grateful. He was my mentor.'
Heroine: Cicely Berry, the RSC voice coach, 'worked every day to eradicate my Wolverhampton accent'.
Career highs: Camille with the RSC; Cleopatra at the Globe.
Career low: Breaking of her 'anterior cruciate ligament' in a bicycle collision, delaying opening night of Ian McKellen's King Lear (in which Barber plays Goneril). She hails McKellen as the kindest of men, making her soup, sometimes carrying her when she could not walk.
Worst thing ever written about her: 'The assertion in one newspaper that I came off my bike and injured myself falling down the steps of the Dirty Duck (the pub) in Stratford!'
On the power of British theatre: 'The English can inflect a single word with so many meanings.'
Would like to do: 'Any comedy with Michael Gambon... because I'm sure it would be as much fun for the audience as it would for me.'
23 Damian Lewis
Age: 36
Training: Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Coming up: Iraq war movie The Situation. Also, a major new NBC cop drama, Life, to be aired in the US this autumn. Lewis is Charlie Crews, a detective returning to work after years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Big break: 'I've never had a big break - more lots of mini-breaks'... but his career took off in earnest after BBC's Hearts and Bones (2000).
Career high: 'I've always loved being at the National. It is so romantic cycling across Waterloo Bridge.'
Career low: 'That cornflakes ad.'
Would love to work with: 'Cheek by Jowl, Shared Experience and Complicite. I'd like to work with Mark Rylance as well.'
24 Helen McCrory
Age: 38
Training: Drama Centre
Coming up: Plays Dr Victoria Frankenstein in an upcoming ITV version of the classic tale. Also to star opposite Daniel Craig in the film Flashbacks of a Fool.
Inspiration: Bob Dylan
Big break: 'Richard Eyre when he was at the National He has helped me along more than anyone.'
Favourite theatres: 'The Almeida, Donmar and National, because of the people. In all three, the backstage and front-of-house are as involved with the play as the people on stage. I'll always ask the ushers what they thought of the previous night's show, because they'll give you an honest answer.'
Why is British acting so good? 'We practise it more than anyone else. We don't earn as much money so we've got to work all the time. We have a tradition of theatre, and you've really got to cut it in theatre.'
Are you proud of being British? 'Oh yeah.'
25 Paterson Joseph
Age: 42
Training: Hendon College, Lamda
Coming up: Saint Joan at the National, The Emperor Jones (revival) at the National, Jekyll (BBC1, starts on Saturday).
Big break: 'Not bloody yet! It's a war of attrition, that's what I'm fighting. I'll keep going until they stop me.'
Heroes: 'Morgan Freeman for his longevity and serenity, Ian Holm for his power and commitment, Daniel Day-Lewis because he transforms himself and is very bold and brave. And Olivier, for all of those reasons encapsulated in one.'
Career highs: 'Hamlet on Broadway and The Beach with Danny Boyle. The Emperor Jones at the Gate, and I know doing it at the National is going to be amazing.'
Favourite play: 'Othello. I fought against it because of the cliche that black actors will play Othello. But then I played it at the Manchester Exchange; it's one of the most beautiful, lyrical, poetic love stories ever.'
Why is British acting so good? 'English actors have a modesty, a humility, mixed in with a kind of cynicism. American actors can be protective of their status. '
26 Anne-Marie Duff
Age: 36
Training: Drama Centre
Coming up: Saint Joan at The National (opens 4 July). Irish film Garage just shown at Cannes.
Big break: 'I've never turned on a sixpence. It was an quite old-fashioned trajectory really. Commercially it would probably be Shameless. It would be daft to deny it.'
Career high: 'I'm on a high at the moment. It's not often you get to be in the rehearsal room with 21 men and just you. To be doing Saint Joan is a dream come true. When I got the phone call I had to sit down on the sofa for about five minutes.'
Are you proud to be British? 'I'm very proud of our astonishing writing.'
Why is British acting so good? 'Perhaps it's the training, perhaps it's a natural aptitude.'
27 Simon Russell Beale
Age: 46
Training: Cambridge, where he was a chorister. Guildhall
Career high: Spamalot
Heroes: 'Loads. But Michael Gambon relaxed me. He taught me to be very naughty.'
Favourite theatre: The Swan and Cottesloe.
Would like to do: 'I am desperate to do Falstaff, with Sam Mendes.'
What is so good about British theatre: 'It is so great to have Shakespeare as part of the armoury. But I hate the idea that he should be just the province of the Brits.'
On acting: 'Without an emotional punch, acting means nothing.'
28 Rufus Sewell
Age: 39
Training: Central School of Speech and Drama
Coming up: Vinyan, a film by Fabrice Du Welz set in Thailand and co-starring Emmanuelle Beart. Also in John Adams, a seven-part HBO series about the early days of America.
Big break: Being directed in Macbeth at Central by Judi Dench, whose agent took him on after seeing the play.
Favourite theatres: The Royal Exchange in Manchester and the National. 'The backstage life is fantastic in both - each has a very democratic feel.'
Would like to: 'Do some broad comedy - a well-written farce. '
Why are British actors sought after in America? 'We speak the same language. We're helped by our history. I remember going to LA for the first time and being introduced as a Shakespearean actor. I hadn't done any Shakespeare but I didn't correct the guy in case he gave me a job.'
Proud of being British? 'I've never been much of a nationalist - but yeah, sure I'm proud.'
29 Lia Williams
Age: 42
Training: London Studio Centre
Coming up: Pinter's The Hothouse at the National from 11 July. 'That will be my sixth Pinter play.'
Big break: Alan Ayckbourn's The Revengers' Comedies with Gryff Rhys Jones and Joanna Lumley in the Strand Theatre. 'Then I met Harold Pinter through Alan and started working with him.'
Inspiration: 'I was inspired to become an actor watching Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev playing Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Opera House.'
Career high: 'When Richard Eyre phoned me to say Skylight was going to New York and I was going with it.'
Career low: 'Touring a play called When Did You Last See Your Trousers. I was in my underwear, being chased by a gorilla.'
Favourite theatre: 'Wyndham's is the most romantic. You can smell its history and all the famous actors who have been there. '
Why is British acting so good? 'Maybe it stems from the fact that we chase after good writing. I know I do.'
30 Meera Syal
Age: 45
Training: English and drama at Manchester university
First job: With Joint Stock at the Royal Court in Sue Townsend's The Great Celestial Cow.
Coming up: Currently in Rafta Rafta at the National until November. Also starring in Jekyll starting on BBC1 on Saturday.
Big break: 'Max Stafford-Clark gave me a huge break in Serious Money, the Caryl Churchill play I did in 1987 about city traders. It was the most amazing cast and I had a great part, and it just became this huge hit going from the Royal Court to the West End and then to Broadway.'
Heroes: 'I'm a big Judi Dench fan, and I love Kathy Burke.'
Would love to work with: 'Debbie Isitt is one of the few film directors in this country who likes working like Christopher Guest, through improvisation, which is what I love doing.'
Is being British important to you? 'Yes. Particularly in comedy. I think our tradition of satire is probably the best in the world.' The Americans do some fabulous stuff, and I still think Frasier is probably the best sitcom ever, so they beat us to it. But I feel that when you're working in comedy over here you do feel part of an enormous and brilliant tradition that goes right back to the Pythons and before that. You're kind of aware that you are carrying a baton.'
Why is British acting so good? 'The people who are in it are in it because they are passionate about it.'
31 Victoria Hamilton
Age: 36
Training: Lamda
First job: The BBC's Pride and Prejudice. 'I didn't know it was going to be such a big success. When it's your first job you don't think far beyond the fact that you're being paid to act.'
Hero: 'I used to say I wanted to work with Woody Allen, and then I did Scoop with him. I guess I'll have to find someone else now.'
Favourite theatres: 'The Almeida and the Cottesloe in the National are great.'
Inspiration: 'My best experiences have been working with Michael Grandage, the artistic director at the Donmar. I feel like a better actor by the end of any job with him.'
Career high: 'I loved having my name in lights on Broadway. I was working with Eddie Izzard in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. We got nominated for best play and I got a best actress nomination and he got a best actor nomination.'
Is being British important to you? 'I don't feel British until I work abroad, and then I feel very British. We do have fantastic actors and inspirational theatre and that is something we should be proud of.'
32 Archie Panjabi
Age: 33
Training: Brunel University, drama evening classes and Guildhall exams
Coming up: A Mighty Heart, the story of Daniel Pearl, with Angelina Jolie. Panjabi won a breakthrough award at Cannes last week for her role in the film.
First job: Thin Blue Line for TV
Big break: Being cast in the film East is East
Comedy moment: 'At the casting for East is East I had to wait half an hour because they were waiting for this boy called Archie to walk through the door.'
Hero: Amitabh Bachchan. 'He's got a lot of class. Also Angelina Jolie. She's so different to what's conveyed in the media. She's such a lovely woman.'
Who would you like to work with? 'Paul Greengrass, Tarantino, Spielberg.'
33 Danny Sapani
Age: 36
Training: Central School of Speech and Drama
First job: 'Playing Othello at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews.'
Breakthrough: 'With Cheek by Jowl in Measure for Measure.'
Career high: Max Stafford-Clark's Macbeth at the Arcola and on tour. 'We did it for a year and I loved it. I would call Max Stafford-Clark an inspiration.'
Favourite play: 'I love The Pillowman.'
Favourite theatre: 'I like the way Michael Attenborough is running the Almeida.' (He is currently starring there in Big White Fog).
Is being British important to you? 'I am proud of my Britishness. I think there is more to be explored and celebrated. The colonial experience is seen negatively, but there are positive and unique aspects of this experience.'
34 Janet McTeer
Age: 46
Training: Rada
Coming up: Sense and Sensibility for the BBC. 'And we hope to take the Donmar's Mary Stuart to New York next year.'
Heroine: Theatre producer Thelma Holt. 'A fantastic woman. She treats her actors wonderfully and makes everyone feel their job is really worth doing.'
Big break: 'The Royal Exchange in Manchester in my early twenties, because they gave me loads of fabulous roles.'
Career high: 'A Doll's House when I did it in London and New York. And Mary Stuart. '
Favourite theatres: 'The Donmar because I love tiny theatres, and the National because I love ensemble theatres.'
Would love to work with: 'Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. No need to give reasons, They're just brilliant.'
Why is British acting so good? 'We have such a great theatre tradition and treat it seriously. We value talent more than we value celebrity in art, and I think that's really important.'