Guest star: John
Hannah plays John Wade (episodes 5 & 6)
Appearing in Sea Of Souls has been very much a family affair for Four
Weddings And A Funeral star John Hannah.
Not only is his actress wife Joanna Roth starring in the same episodes,
but their fresh-faced baby twins Gabriel and Astrid were also on set
to take in their parents dramatic efforts.
"There was no planning involved in us both doing Sea Of Souls, it was
coincidence more than anything. Joanna had been offered the job first
and I was going to come up anyway and be house-daddy here with the kids.
"So somebody somewhere must have thought, 'Hey, we're going to
have John Hannah knocking around on set doing nothing. Let's give the
man a job.'
"So it's worked out very well and it's been great bringing the
kids back home to Scotland," says John, happily.
"It hadn't been my intention to look strongly for work this year at
all, but when this came up I liked the script and it meant we could
all be together, so I thought - why not?
"And it also meant we'd have some money coming in so everyone
could get a Christmas present."
John plays mysterious mind reader John Wade, who, in his stage act,
demonstrates an uncanny knack of getting under the skin of his audience.
When he's asked by a terminally ill girl to help heal her, he reluctantly
accepts the challenge. But Craig is convinced he's a fraud.
As the stakes become higher we learn about Wade's dark and troubled
past and the question of who he really is becomes critical.
Meanwhile, John's wife Joanna plays Patience, an odd woman washed up
on a remote Scottish beach claiming to be a survivor from a shipwreck
in 1905.
"With John Wade there is a very obvious stage persona which covers
a man who is quite troubled and carries a lot of baggage.
"That kind of duality is always great fun to play and I think
the audience will be questioning his motives and rightly so - ie, is
he the bogey man or is there a goodness in him?" asks John, star of
Sliding Doors, The Mummy and Rebus.
"He's not in the best of places mentally. He's had a breakdown and
he's left his wife and child - which is a huge thing for anyone to do
- all because of his gift. Or for him it might be more appropriately
considered a curse."
The amiable East Kilbride actor admits he's open to the idea of clairvoyants:
"Some of it I would imagine is very genuine and extraordinary and perhaps
in 1,000 years, if we're still here, we might be able to understand
it a bit more.
"But at the same time it must be very easy to con people if they're
needy and looking for some kind of comfort, which unfortunately must
be easy to exploit.
"There are a lot of unscrupulous people in the world whether they
are tradesmen or politicians and I'm sure the psychic industry is no
purer than any other element of society."
John was an apprentice electrician for four years before accepting
a place at the Royal Scottish Academy Of Music And Drama in Glasgow.
Then in 1994 came his big break - the role of loveable Matthew in megahit
British comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral.
His next big screen project is Houseboat, in which he'll star opposite
Sex & The City actress Kristin Davis.
"It's a romantic comedy or a 'dramady', about a father who separates
from his wife and kids and finds himself very much outside that family
unit.
"There are lots of issues about the legal rights of fathers which
is very prevalent at the moment, so the script is both timely and very
funny."
But in the meantime John is more than happy to stay at home and play
dad. So will the twins be following in their famous parents' actorly
footsteps?
He laughs: "Who knows? But like any parent in this day and age, you
have those moments of looking at them and wondering what they are going
to do.
"What will the education system be like? What jobs will there
be for them?
"You can't help but think - yeah, it'd be great if she was an
artist and he was a photographer or something artistic like that.
"But really it would just be great if they are happy. At this
stage all you want is for them to be healthy, have all their fingers,
be nice people and hope they don't turn into serial killers."
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