It\u2019s not a job he would have taken as a younger actor. \u201cI would have run a million miles from a project like that. I\u2019ve been more interested in variety, in not doing the same thing twice. But I\u2019m a bit older now. I\u2019ve got a bit less wanderlust, I\u2019m happier to stay still.\u201d <\/p>\n
He lives in north London with his wife, the actress Sally Scott, and their five-year-old son. For the past three years he has spent half the year in Northern Ireland, playing PD James\u2019s detective Adam Dalgliesh in three series of Dalgliesh on Channel 5 (\u201ca study in stillness\u201d, he calls it). The Winter\u2019s Tale will take him to Stratford for the rest of the summer. The Potter series, meanwhile, will be shot in Leavesden studios, near Watford, 40 minutes\u2019 drive from his home.<\/p>\n
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In series three of Dalgliesh, as PD James\u2019s detective; he has also directed two episodes<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how it\u2019s going to fit into my life. I\u2019ve read one script, which I loved, and I\u2019ve read the books. I hadn\u2019t before I got the role. I think I saw one of the films, maybe two. As a boy if I had read these books I would have devoured them. So I am coming at it with a really open mind. Whether I come back [after the first series] probably depends on what the fans think. I mean, I\u2019ll be furious if it\u2019s not an amazing part.\u201d He declines to talk about the online backlash some of the new cast have faced.<\/p>\n
Not for the first time Carvel is playing an unsympathetic character. He was the cheating husband in Doctor Foster (2015), opposite Suranne Jones, and a scheming press officer in Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain\u2019s Babylon (2014). Another bad guy, then? \u201cOh, is he? I don\u2019t know.\u201d Not for the first time Carvel wants to blur the line between goodie and baddie. <\/p>\n
Take his present role, Leontes, a king who turns tyrannical after one ill-founded bout of jealousy. Carvel read The Winter\u2019s Tale for the first time as an English student at the University of Sussex, when it didn\u2019t mean a huge amount. \u201cBut reading it now, in middle age, has had a very profound effect. It\u2019s about second chances. It\u2019s about time and redemption. All these things have a much deeper impact when you\u2019ve lived a bit and made some mistakes, however banal or grand those might be.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Carvel in rehearsals for the RSC\u2019s The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/p>\n
MARC BRENNER<\/p>\n
Leontes, crucially for Carvel, gets an opportunity to repent. \u201cTo some extent it\u2019s a play about toxic masculinity, about male violence. But if you make Leontes a monster I don\u2019t think redemption is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly for a man who has played so many prominent politicians \u2014 Nick Clegg in James Graham\u2019s TV play Coalition (2015) too \u2014 he points to the play\u2019s political resonances. \u201cThere is a sense around, politically, ecologically, that our darker side is overwhelming us and it may be too late. But the play offers a sense that if we recognise our mistakes, there is a chance of forgiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bertie Carvel: \u2018I would have Tony Blair back in a heartbeat\u2019<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n It is, Carvel admits, the sort of juicy role that doesn\u2019t come along that often. He tries to do a play every year: \u201cMuch longer and I feel I\u2019m losing my lodestone.\u201d And it feels significant to him to return to Stratford 15 years after his career-making performance there, as the terrifying Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical (he went on to perform it 650 times in the West End and on Broadway, winning an Olivier award). <\/p>\n As Miss Trunchball in Matilda the Musical, which won him an Olivier award in 2012<\/p>\n MANUEL HARLAN<\/p>\n Leontes is only his third professional Shakespeare role. \u201cIt felt like a hole in my CV. I\u2019m following in an amazing tradition, and as I get older I get more fond of supporting these cultural pillars.\u201d He smiles \u2014 a flash of Carvel\u2019s molars softens even his most earnest utterance. \u201cPillars of the establishment are not necessarily my thing, but some pillars are good pillars: they should be kept standing.\u201d<\/p>\n Carvel is welcoming company and as urgently articulate as any of his characters. He inhabits his characters and takes a strategic view on them: being likeable is not a priority. \u201cI care about being interesting. And, on stage as in life, I don\u2019t believe people are one thing or other. They are not good or evil. I think the great tragedy of our moment is the lack of empathy and generosity \u2014 that people take positions rather than being curious about the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n He excelled as Trump on stage in 2022, where he had to see the world as the president does. \u201cAnd that is a good reduction of what my job is. My job, simply put, is to mean what I say. Some people are liars, are disingenuous. But you have to stand in that character\u2019s shoes and understand what is at stake for them and what they intend. If you can do that, however you do it, intellectually or instinctually or a mix of the two, then I think you arrive at good acting.\u201d<\/p>\n Carvel as Donald Trump in Mike Bartlett\u2019s play, The 47th, in 2022<\/p>\n MARC BRENNER<\/p>\n![\"Cleo](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/\/e2de7852-e1d3-4926-82eb-5c6f24cd229d.jpg\")
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