Matt Berry, “Bedfordshire’s Christopher Walken”, Talks ‘Toast Of London’, ‘Moon’ And Cult Vampire Comedy ‘What We Do In The Shadows’
“Who is that actor?” It’s probably everyone’s reaction to their first experience of Britain’s Matt Berry. With his booming delivery, and an uncanny ability to draw out every last vowel and consonant from even the dullest of words, Berry has been a cult comic actor in the U.K. for 20 years now. He broke out there in 2012 with Toast of London, a surreal sitcom in which he appeared as the bitter, buffoonish, self-serious thespian Steven Toast. But in 2019, the FX show What We Do in the Shadows took his homegrown appeal overseas, as the shape-shifting 300-year-old vampire Laszlo in the mock-doc comedy show inspired by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s word-of-mouth movie hit from 2014.
Hardcore fans will remember him as Dr. Sanchez from Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, a horror parody devised by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade that premiered to little fanfare in 2004 but has since gathered a devout following, in the slipstream of Edgar Wright’s pioneering, cine-literate sitcom Spaced. Until Toast of London, however, TV struggled to find the right place for him, and his career was in danger of amounting to a series of guest spots, like the time he appeared on the surreal U.K. gameshow Shooting Stars as a brooding, taciturn version of the Chariots of Fire composer Vangelis.
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Sadly, a promising 2019 Channel 4 show — Year of the Rabbit, in which Berry starred as a violent, trash-talking Victorian cop — was stymied by the pandemic after just six episodes, and in film there’s a sense of untapped potential, too. Duncan Jones saw it early on, giving him a wry cameo in his lo-fi 2009 sci-fi debut Moon (you might need to squint but you’ll hear it), and Berry will be returning for an equally offbeat role in the director’s new, under-wraps film Rogue Trooper, based on the character from the U.K.’s 2000AD magazine, home of Judge Dredd. “I think what sets Matt apart is his ability to turn the mundane into the eccentric,” Jones says. “He’s Bedfordshire’s own Christopher Walken.”
But although he looks good in a smoking jacket, Berry isn’t just lounging around waiting for the industry to wake up to his unconventional leading-man charms. For 30 years now, he has been a musician too, releasing 11 albums of ’60s-tinged psychedelic folk-pop, mostly on the discerning Acid Jazz label.
Just before Berry’s recent trip to Comic Con, having received an Emmy nomination for What We Do in The Shadows for Outstanding Lead Actor in A Comedy Series, Deadline spoke to the man behind the voice…
DEADLINE: How did you first get involved with What We Do in the Shadows?
MATT BERRY: I was doing a film with Jemaine Clement, An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, and he casually mentioned one day that he had an idea to make a series out of the film that he’d made with Taika a couple of years before. Would I be interested? I asked him if he was going to be in it. He said he was. I asked if Taika was going to be in it. He said he was. So, I said, “Yeah! Of course! I’m in!” And then I got to Los Angeles and neither Taika nor Jemaine were in it. But they did direct it. So, all was not lost, put it that way.
DEADLINE: For people who haven’t seen the show, can you talk a little bit about who Laszlo is and what attracted you to the part?
BERRY: He’s 300 years old, something like that. He’s an aristocrat who was bitten by an attractive young Greek vampire and he never looked back after that. He just carried on with a fairly hedonistic lifestyle from that moment on, doing all the things he’d wished he could do before he was bitten and became a vampire, basically. That would attract any actor, I think. I mean, because all these characters are dead — or undead, whichever you choose — they can say and do anything. That’s what attracts me to it. We don’t have to be cautious, because these people don’t exist, and while they may be based within our times, they’re not from our times. So that gives them credit to do and say whatever they like — within reason. And as a result, he’s always been very free to play.
DEADLINE: When you signed up, did you realize the show would be an ongoing thing?
BERRY: Well, no one does. You just sign up and see what happens. There isn’t anyone that expects their TV show to run for more than a couple of seasons, let alone six. It’s very rare now, and we were all very lucky.
DEADLINE: When did you know it was working out?
BERRY: Well, it’s difficult because I’m based here [in the U.K.] and over there [in the U.S.], so I had to be told that it was working over there because I wasn’t over there enough to see it for myself. I’d be sent pictures of billboards, and all these kinds of things, but unless you’re actually there, you don’t know. I had no sense of it either way — over here or over there. It was just a job. I finish a job, do some other jobs, and then go back to that job. Do you know what I mean? That sounds weird, but I don’t know how else to explain it.
DEADLINE: How does it work on the show? Do you have input in the writing? How does each season develop?
BERRY: Everybody was chosen due to their abilities to improvise, so that was always encouraged. I mean, that was a big thing for Jemaine and Taika. They were very keen for everybody to be able to improvise and basically make the scenes seem kind of natural, but at the same time sort of preposterous. That was the main aim from them. They wanted to get to a certain point within the plot, but in as many flowery ways — as in, funny ways — as possible, and that was encouraged right until the end.
DEADLINE: You have a very particular delivery. Do they write to your strengths?
BERRY: No, not at all, which is a good thing. My dialogue is bone-straight, without any sort of flower, and then I’ll add whatever it needs, depending on Laszlo’s situation within that episode.
DEADLINE: How has Laszlo developed over the past five years?
BERRY: It’s difficult to say, because it’s not that sort of show. These characters are hundreds of years old. They’re stuck in their ways, so you can’t really stretch them and take them on journeys that will alter the characters. The characters have been the same for hundreds of years, so you just hit the ground with a fairly loud start and then keep going. That’s the thing. I didn’t really do anything different in the last season that I wasn’t doing in the first, I don’t think. Or even the pilot.
DEADLINE: There’s also a lot of guest stars. How does that work on a show like this?
BERRY: Well, it’s like any kind of TV show: It’s a battle of scheduling. We’re in Toronto, which isn’t the easiest place to get to for a lot of actors. For some it is. If they’re in New York, it’s not much of a problem. But if they’re in Los Angeles or over here in the U.K., then it’s not so easy. So that dictates who turns up. That’s been the art. If you want to be in it badly enough, then you’ll come out to Toronto. [Laughs.] Nothing against Toronto, don’t get me wrong. It’s a lovely place and I’m very, very grateful to it and everyone there. But, yeah, I mean, that was how we got the guest stars: Do they want to come over?
DEADLINE: Do you get recognized much from the show?
BERRY: Yeah.
DEADLINE: At the risk of making it worse for you, is there a particular line they quote to you?
BERRY: It’s not just things from Shadows, it’s things from all kinds of shows. But if it’s Shadows, then I’ll hear someone shout, “Bat!” And people don’t do it within a meter of you, they’ll make sure that they’re at least 50 meters away. It’s weird, because it can happen any time of the day, day or night, I could have been out somewhere and be walking home in the early hours, and someone will shout, “Bat!” in the distance. Or I can be up first thing at five in the morning and I can hear someone shouting “Bat!” in the distance. So, it really doesn’t make any difference what time of day, I’ve found out.
DEADLINE: Was Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place your first TV show?
BERRY: It was indeed. Yeah. I hadn’t done anything before then. I hadn’t had a plan to do comedy or be on TV. It was nothing that I ever thought I’d end up doing.
DEADLINE: What were you doing before that, as an actor?
BERRY: Well, I was in the London Dungeon. The London Dungeon is a London tourist attraction. It’s a cross between a museum and a live performance kind of thing. During the course of a day you’d be Jack the Ripper in the morning and then you’d be a judge in the afternoon. At its height, you’d be doing something like 20 or 30 shows a day, and I loved it. It was fantastic fun, but the money was horrendous.
I’d do gigs in the evening, and then that’s how Dark Place happened. I was doing a gig, and Matt Holness and Richard Ayoade came up to me and said, “We’re doing a TV version of [their Edinburgh Fringe show] Dark Place and we’d like you to play the Spanish doctor.” In my head, I was like, “Well, you’re taking a risk there, ’cause I’ve never done any television or any comedy before. I haven’t got a clue.” But — obviously — I didn’t say that to them. I was like, “Yeah, yeah, fine,” because I had nothing to lose and absolutely nothing going on at that point. So it was all to play for. I just said yes to everything and turned up to rehearsal, and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t know whether I would or not. I’d never done anything like that. And that’s it. Then it went to series and, touch wood, I’ve worked ever since.
DEADLINE: When did you realize that this was working out for you?
BERRY: Well, you don’t. You don’t ever think that, as such. You’re just grateful that you’re still working. I mean, I didn’t think I’d work after Dark Place. I didn’t even know whether they would show the whole series. And I wasn’t convinced it was actually going to be aired until the first night when it did. And no one believed that I was going to be on the TV. [Laughs.] I told people, including my family. I said, “I’m going to be on the TV next month.” It wasn’t until the adverts came on, and I was in one of those adverts, that everybody realized I wasn’t full of sh*t.
DEADLINE: Outside of What We Do in the Shadows, you’re probably best known for the British TV series Toast of London. Can you talk a little bit about the genesis of that and how it came together?
BERRY: Well, I’d always wanted to do it ’cause I’d been doing voiceovers for years and years with older actors, seeing how they behaved, and just finding it very, very funny. I knew that there was something there. So I wrote all the ideas for it, his name and everything, and then spoke to Arthur Mathews, ’cause I wasn’t successful enough then for anyone to say, “Yeah, well, he’s written this. Let’s make it into a series.” I needed help in the form of Arthur, and Arthur is still the best at what he does. I’ve always been the biggest fan of his. I was hugely honored when he said that he would get involved, and then we did the pilot, and that led to four series.
DEADLINE: What appeals to you about that character?
BERRY: He’s pompous, and he thinks that better things should be happening to him. There’s a never-ending supply of things you can do to him to put him back in his place each time. But it’s just fantastic to play because it’s not set in any particular time. It has a foot in the ’70s and in the modern day, so we’re not limited to what we can do. A bit like Shadows. These characters are in their own world so they can do anything.
DEADLINE: Will you be going back to him?
BERRY: Well, I did Toast of Tinseltown, the fourth series, where he went to Hollywood and, if you’ve seen that, you’ll know what happened to him at the end. I don’t know. I mean, I’m happy with it. It did everything that I wanted it to do.
DEADLINE: There was quite an ensemble feel on Toast? How did you put those people together?
BERRY: Some were people I knew that I wanted to work with, and I knew would get the tone, and others were auditions. Because it’s a tone thing. If you come into it thinking you’re doing a comedy, you’ll get the tone completely wrong, because this is a world where nobody really has a sense of humor and they don’t find other people or themselves funny. That’s the thing that I used to say to keep in mind with all of these characters in Toast: They don’t think this is funny. They think this is incredibly serious. And that’s — I hope — was how we got the subtle comedy across.
DEADLINE: One of your first credits was Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009). How did you first get involved with Duncan?
BERRY: I knew Duncan just from around London, and he mentioned that he was doing it. This is years ago. I can remember him mentioning it and pulling out some in-camera effects that he was doing. He built his moon set and all that. I remember thinking it looked incredible and didn’t think much else about it. And then, about a month after he’d shown me that stuff, he was like, “You’re going to be in it.” We did it in Shepperton, I think. Again, I had no idea that it was going to be the success that it was. I hope Duncan did! It’s a fantastic film.
DEADLINE: What are you working on at the moment?
BERRY: I’m doing my own film. That’s hopefully going to be the next thing that I’m doing. But before that, I’m doing something called Citadel. The second season of that.
DEADLINE: And what part do you play?
BERRY: A spy.
DEADLINE: You also recently appeared in The Simpsons…
BERRY: It was only one episode. Just a guest role.
DEADLINE: But was that a milestone? Surely every actor dreams of being on The Simpsons?
BERRY: Yeah, I mean, it was an incredible year for me, because a month before I did The Simpsons I did Curb Your Enthusiasm. So, it was two things in the space of a few months. I was like, “F*cking hell…!” I mean, Curb Your Enthusiasm has always been one of my favorite shows, so to actually be part of it was a huge honor. I know everyone says that sort of sh*t, but it’s true. I really mean it, because I’d watched it when it first came out, before I got into the business, so to be part of the last season was crazy. It was Bruce Springsteen’s episode as well, so that was even better.
DEADLINE: How does Larry David work? Is it true that there’s really no script?
BERRY: No, there is no script. No, no, no. Larry picks people that improvise, and you’re just given a starting point and sort of an end point. He explains what he wants, and then you just go at it. You do as many takes as you like. It’s completely free. He’s amazing, and he reacts perfectly to everything that you do. He gives you stuff back and lets you make a load of noise. He’s just perfect. I loved every minute, to be honest.
DEADLINE: You mentioned Bruce Springsteen. How’s your new album coming along?
BERRY: Slowly! But I’m doing it as fast as I can. I should have finished it by now, and I would’ve liked to have finished it by now. But it will be finished. It is being finished.
DEADLINE: What inspires you musically?
BERRY: Everything. The same things that did in the early days. I was doing it before I got into any of this, writing songs, coming up with stuff. I just love it, and I love recording, and I love playing. Everything. It’s just such a release, and so satisfying. There isn’t anything as satisfying for me as finishing an album.
DEADLINE: You’ve already filmed Season 6 of What We Do in The Shadows. What can you say about it?
BERRY: I’m excited about the last season coming out because there’s some pretty cool stuff in the finale, things that I’ve never seen anyone else do. So, I’m quite excited to see what people’s reaction to that will be. There are lots of special guests, but it contains what I think is a pretty cool finale. I mean, they can go one way or the other, can’t they? People can spend days and days talking about how much they hated a finale or how much they loved it. So, who knows? But I think it’s cool.
DEADLINE: Is it a particularly, shall we say, emphatic finale?
BERRY: You’d have to see it.
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