BEN BARNES: THE PRINCE’S WARDROBE
Ben Barnes was chuffed to be asked to wear classic British menswear for this Observer fashion shoot. “If this is my perceived style, that’s brilliant. I’m Burberry in a park!” After roles in Dorian Gray and Easy Virtue, and his current appearance as Stephen Wraysford in the stage adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’s novel Birdsong, it’s a visual shorthand that makes sense. And was dressing as an English gent enjoyable?
“It was,” he concedes. “I don’t do many shoots. You can’t, otherwise you get too self-conscious. It’s like when you go the gym. You enjoy the first few times, but then start thinking: ‘All I do is lift something heavy and put it down where I found it. I’ve achieved nothing.’ Or when you think about theatre acting as simply shouting in the evening… Oh.” He stops. “How did I get there?”
He may look like Burberry in a park, but Barnes is interestingly introspective. This might partly be due to the fact he was raised – in Wimbledon, south London – by a psychotherapist mother and a psychiatrist father, but, at 29, Barnes’s articulate thoughtfulness seems to be all his own.
When we meet in a Soho bar, he is six weeks into the run of Birdsong and, unsurprisingly, given that he has to endure lost love and the First World War every night of the week, he’s quite tired. “This is probably the hardest job I’ve done because it’s a three-hour play and I’m barely off the stage,” he says. “I’ve got that feeling of being drained that you get after you cry.”
He’s delighted to be back on stage, though. It was theatre that made him first want to be an actor. “I was heavily into sport from 10 to 15, I was in all the teams, and it was everything to me. But I was very young for my school year and when puberty kicked in for my classmates I got left behind. That’s when I did more acting and singing.”
His first brush with fame was with music, as a member of boy band Hyrise, which competed to be the British entry for Eurovision 2004. A mention of this makes him groan. “I was in the band for about a fortnight. Of course I regret it. I know everyone makes mistakes, but I wish mine had been drug-fuelled rebellion rather than being in a boy band.”
He became famous in 2008 with his role as Prince Caspian in the Chronicles of Narnia films, the latest of which, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is out next month. “Shooting Prince Caspian, the first film, was overwhelming. I’d never been on a major film set before, never been to New Zealand where it was filmed, never been horse riding – I was so anxious. This time I enjoyed it. This film is younger, more fun and it’s easily the best story of the seven books. I saw it last week. Traditionally I watch my films through my fingers – I hate watching myself – but I loved this and I want millions of people to see it.”
Next year brings a very different role when Barnes plays music journalist Neil McCormick in the big-screen adaptation of comic memoir Killing Bono. McCormick was at school with Bono and in a rival band to U2 during the 1980s. “It was amazing pratting about in Belfast wearing leather trousers,” says Barnes, beaming. “I made a complete fool of myself, which comes quite naturally. Playing the clown of the group is my role with my friends.”
After that Barnes would like to try Hollywood, but is happy to take any script or part that interests him. “I want to take advantage of any popularity I have. That how you get more work, and that’s how you get exciting work. Those opportunities diminish if you don’t keep your momentum up.”
For now, though, it’s back to this evening’s performance of Birdsong. Barnes pulls out some gloves that he was allowed to keep from the Observer shoot. He puts them on and waves his hands oddly and precisely in the air. I ask what on earth he’s doing.
“Robert Downey Jr using his computer in Iron Man 2.”
He does a quick impression of Tom Cruise using a screen in Minority Report to show me how the hand movements are different, then gathers his belongings so he can head off to the theatre. Outside, I suddenly remember that he paid for our drinks and I didn’t thank him, but Barnes has already disappeared, heading back to the trenches.
