"Quotes" and Press Kits This page contains excerpts from press kits and quotes from Steven on various projects. Excerpt from "The Last of the Mohicans" press kit: "As Major Duncan Heyward, the British Officer leading the 35th Regiment of foot, English actor STEVEN WADDINGTON learned a great deal about military rank in a short time. "There is only one character, Colonel Munro, who outranks Heyward, who finds out very early on that he likes to give orders. That is all he has ever known. One of the main conflicts he has in the movie is with Hawkeye because he can't stand being out of control. He's simply not used to people disobeying his orders or declining his requests. So the harsh reality in store for Heyward is that he is surrounded by insubordination, he is spurned by his lover and he finds himself out of place in this world." Born and raised in Leeds, England, Steven Waddington ... will soon be seen as Christopher Columbus' brother in 1492 ... LOTM was [his] first work in the United States. Excerpt from "Tarzan and the Lost City" press kit: At age 18, British-born Steven Waddington (Nigel Ravens) earned a place at
London's East 15 Acting School and three years later joined the esteemed Royal Shakespeare
Company. The actor spent a two-year season with the RSC, appearing in such plays as
"All's Well That Ends Well," "Coriolanus" and "Pericles,"
before being cast as the lead in Derek Jarman's controversial art-house feature,
"Edward II." With no prior film experience, the actor found the transition from
stage to screen an easy one, following his screen debut with a starring role in Michael
Mann's epic, "The Last of the Mohicans." from filmmaker Stanley Canter: For the part of the cold-blooded mercenary and Tarzan's nemesis, Nigel Ravens, Canter looked to Britain. He says, "I had seen Steven Waddington's work and was impressed by his physicality, a quality not every British actor shares. His brooding nature is suited to the determination that drives Ravens." Quote from Steven on A&E's "Ivanhoe": (you can hear this online at http://www.aetv.com/scenes/ivanhoe/ram/ivanhoe.ram , but hurry. They have already taken off the jpeg you click on to play it. I still had the link bookmarked. Unfortunately you can only listen to it online, it won't let you download it.) "For me, it's a story of a man who's returning from the Holy Wars after having been fighting for five years and didn't leave on good terms with his father. When he returns, he has to regain the respect of his father, for one he has to reshow his love for Rowena who is his father's ward and also clear his name. His name has been dismudged by Bois-Guilbert a sort of villain of the piece. Right from the word 'go' he has a series of problems to overcome, and we follow him on that journey and meet a whole cast of colorful characters and different situations...a thrilled great adventure and romantic piece. Rowena and Ivanhoe were childhood sweethearts. They have always had a love for one another. They've actually grown up together. When he returns from the Holy Wars and sees her again, I think he's still in love with Rowena. What he doesn't need is to bump into another beautiful woman just around the corner. And that's of course what happens, so he has a dilema the whole way through. And at the time of course Rebecca is Jewish, and so that kind of relationship can't be. And I don't want to give the story away of who he ends up with, but it's just the whole dilema for him all the way through it....great for me to be acting with two very beautiful women, but for Ivanhoe, it's not so. For all messages, is the old one of "good versus evil" really. I mean there's a dark character, Bois-Guilbert, and there's myself Ivanhoe. And it's good against bad, but having said...their work, it's written so well. It's adapted very well by Deborah Cook. She's really caught the flavor of the time, but also it's the 'bad guys' aren't just 'bad guys'. You see why they become what they are, and Ivanhoe is.....(cuts off). more on Ivanhoe: "For me," says Waddington, "the appeal of Ivanhoe is the journey that he takes. As soon as he arrives home from the Crusades he is presented with a series of problems that he has to overcome. He has to win the respect of his father, who thinks he has been a coward and betrayed King Richard, and win the love of Rowena. Then, of course, he meets another beautiful woman--Rebecca, and has to decide whom he really loves and will marry. It is a classic story. It has everything: love honor and betrayal." Filming Ivanhoe meant coping with weeks of freezing conditions in Scotland and Northumberland, England. When the weather improved, Steven encountered a fresh problem. The knights’ tourney - with all the jousting on horseback was filmed during a particularly warm spell, which meant the actor sweated instead of froze. "The armor is obviously very heavy and uncomfortable. That was a tough time. Getting on and off horses and charging about," said Waddington. "There was almost permanently a layer of sweat between my body and the chain mail. It was one way of losing a bit of weight!" Great care was taken to ensure that the swashbuckling sequences in the epic adventure were filmed as safely as possible. But Waddington still took a couple of knocks. Once was during a sword fight with Ciaran Hinds, who plays Ivanhoe’s arch rival, Brian de Bois-Guilbert. Their encounter left Waddington in need of medical attention. Another incident was when the actor had to ride his horse into an ambush when the air was thick with arrows. "It was the first time we had done the scene and there was a bit of a dip where I had to ride through. The horse didn’t like the look of this and so it leapt instead of simply running. The animal went down and as I went down with it I thought. . .‘This is it.’ I thought I might have been crushed. Luckily we were both OK." But Waddington enjoyed the horse riding and is determined that it’s a hobby which he will maintain away from the cameras. The sport which he really loves and which helps keep him in great shape, however, is boxing. Waddington still teases his agent that he is going to step into the ring for an amateur boxing bout one of these days. "It is just something that I have always wanted to do. Something I feel I have to do." "For the big sword fight scene with Ciaran we had to look as though we knew what we were doing. So there was intense preparation. But it still had to be done very quickly. We had an excellent fight instructor, Nick Powell," says Waddington. Waddington is used to the rigorous schedule of filming a literary classic. He appeared with Daniel Day-Lewis in the film Last Of The Mohicans. "That meant five months in the Carolinas. We did all sorts of training, learning canoeing and rock climbing, before filming started. It was a terrific experience," said Waddington. Upon finishing shooting IVANHOE, there was one task that was at the top of Waddington’s priority list: shaving. "I’ll be glad to get rid of the beard," he laughed. "I’ve had to have it for months and it will be great to be able to have the choice of being clean-shaven again." more to come..... |