JOSEPH MARCELL CATCHES ‘FEVER’: ‘Fresh Prince’ butler shows bad guy side in new film

[Ale]

*Here in the States, television fans know actor Joseph Marcell as the witty, sharp-tongued butler of the popular 90’s television series “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” with Will Smith. But there’s much more to the small screen star. First off, the accent is real.

The Londoner is a household name on Britain’s stage and the UK small screen. Secondly, he’s not just a funny side man, particularly in his new film “Fever.”

“Fever” is about an English cop on the run in Los Angeles who must find his estranged ex-wife and daughter before a terrorist group releases a deadly virus. With the film currently in production, Marcell took a moment to talk with EUR’s Lee Bailey about the new role and the one that made him famous in the US.

Marcell said that he was recruited for the role of Geoffrey the butler while on the stage in London.

“I was in a production of August Wilson’s Jill Turner’s ‘Come and Gone” and apparently someone had seen me,” he recalled. “My agent said they’d just got a call from some Americans: 'They want you to put something on tape. Nothing will become of it, but sometimes you have to do these things.' So, I put it on tape and sent it off to Los Angeles. The next day they called and gave me direction, we sent it back and they asked, ‘Can he be in Los Angeles this weekend?’ I could be with them the following weekend and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Marcell starred on the hit show for its entire six-year run.

However, even with such a memorable role and a place in pop culture, Marcell reminded that his role on the show was hardly his entre into acting. He signed on for “Fresh Prince” at age 40, but he’d been making a living as an actor since he was 22 years old.

“So the people that knew me, knew me and the people that didn’t, didn’t,” he said of his rise to fame in the US. “I was simply playing a role and when it was over, I moved on to the next one. I didn’t see it as a way of life. It didn’t occur to me that perhaps people would see me as that and that (the butler) would be the only thing I can do. I can do a hundred million more things than that. I just appreciated it for what it was, and I will be forever grateful for it.”

Joseph Marcell and Gary McDonald in 'Fever'

Because of his history, Marcell told us the butler role did not typecast him – at least not worldwide.

“I don’t know how it has in the American television scene, but it certainly hasn’t in Britain,” he proclaimed. “And it hasn’t in the American theater either because I’ve been working with the American Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC. I’m about to make a deal with the Lincoln Center (NYC) to do a new play by John Guare. It hasn’t affected me in that way. My credits as a serious actor have never been impaired by ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.’ In fact, it has only enhanced it.”

The actor said that his role on “Fresh Prince” helps to showcase his talent.

“People can see that I can easily go from one aspect of the medium to another. I can switch from stage to film and I have no problems with the discipline of either,” he said. “It has not impaired my prowess as a stage actor. ‘My God, you’ve done the show and you’re still doing theater?!’”

“I haven’t stopped working at all. I have done a variety of things. It has always been that way. When we finished with ‘The Fresh Prince,’ I came back to London to do a series called ‘Brothers and Sisters’ about a bitter pastor of a church. For several years it was successful, and then back to the theater and then back to L.A. to do television when it comes,” he said.

“If I stop moving, they’ll catch up with me and find me out so I try to keep moving as much as I can.”

With the new project, Marcell is staying busy. He said that he enjoyed the process of working with newcomer writer/director/actor Q.

“Our problem with film over here is a thousand times worse than it is for African-Americans. It is very difficult for young filmmakers to get reasonably established people to look at their work. However, I knew Q as a very young actor over the past 20 years and I’ve always admired him and he’s always treated me with the greatest respect,” Marcell said. “He’s a wonderful young man. He has this sense of what it is to be an elder; to be an experienced person. He said, ‘I want you to do this. I know you’re busy, but man, you’ve got to do it.’ I like to read [it] before I do it. I read it and it was marvelous.”

The veteran actor said that he was inspired by Q’s creativity and direction.

“But most of all, I admired his professionalism,” he said. “And that’s something that we suffer from a lot of here. He was a stickler for the form. Sometimes some people find that boring, but I find it really admirable because time is money. And he treated me like I was a creative artist; like I knew what I was talking about.”

Of his “Fever” character, Marcell described it as “completely left field from how the world sees me.” The character in “Fresh Prince” is a cultured Man-Friday, while “Fever” unleashes an innocent, kindly old man who turns out to be the “villain to end all villains.”

And of being offered and taking on the polar opposite of the American favorite Geoffrey, Marcell said he was flattered.

“I am not tall, dark, and handsome. My kudos comes from the fact that I am very good at what I do. So what I try to do is do as many different things as I can to show how versatile I am. And thanks to the Lord above, people give me the opportunity,” he said.

http://eurweb.com/story/eur55475.cfm

[JumpinJack AJ]

Awesome article. Thanx for posting this. I don't think i've seen him in anything else. He just has a vibe that makes me think he probably one of the most talented actors of our time. I hope i get 2 see some stuff that supports that.