Although movie-making's a high-pressure business, I always like to get back to work. There may come a day when I'm blase about the whole business, but I'm a way short of it yet. I love turning up for a new project, meeting my fellow actors, the guys and gals behind the scenes, the caterers, and even the publicity people.
I have to say that since I've moved out from under Miles Gray son's hugely generous and protective wing, I've enjoyed it even more, since I'm beginning to feel like a real actor, as if I'm with my peers. That even includes Ewan Capperauld, the British star most respected by everyone in the business, including himself.
Ewan has played just about every type you can name, and played them all brilliantly. For all that Miles did a great job in the part, I was sorry that in the end Ewan didn't get to play Bob Skinner, for that role could have been written for him, or he for it. But in my professional opinion, he's at his best whenever he plays the bad guy.
Of course that may be true of all good actors, for as they'll often tell you, the villain is usually the meatiest role in a movie.
That isn't necessarily the case with Mathew's Tale, for the hero part, my character, has loads of meat about him, but Ewan's guy, Sir Gregor Cleland, an amazingly nasty baronet, is one of the 'best' baddies I've ever encountered.
"How's it been with you?" I asked him, after we'd greeted each other at the first cast meeting. You can never be sure how Ewan's going to react at times like that. He has a habit of dropping unconsciously into whatever character he's playing; on this occasion, Sir Gregor was still in his box, for he answered affably.
"Fine, thank you. I've been working my butt off, though. I've just come off a month playing Hamlet at Stratford-on-Avon. The offer was made, and I decided to do it one last time, before I got too ridiculously old for the Prince's costume. The Bard's a progression for an actor, you know. One starts with Hamlet and Henry the Fifth, then moves on to Richard of Gloucester and his kin, until finally, one is offered Lear. That's when you know you're over the hill. Have you ever done any Shakespeare, Oz?"
There was a time when I'd have thought he was taking the piss if he'd asked me that… and probably he would have been… but not any more. Now I'm taken seriously, even by people as eminent as him.
"As a matter of fact I have," I told him. "I played Romeo, once; Jan, my first wife, played Juliet. Doesn't count, though. It was at school."
"Of course it counts. It all goes on the Cy my lad."
"Speaking of wives," I began, a shade tentatively.
"The divorce is final," he replied. Ewan's private life had turned chaotic a while back; that was what had forced him out of the Skinner movies.
"Sorry."
"Thanks, but don't be."
"Are you still seeing Natalie Morgan?" She had been the start of his trouble.
"Not for a while. I've been going around with Rhona Waitrose."
"You and the Scots Guards' I thought, suppressing a smile. Rhona was known as one of the friendliest girls in town; I'll never forget the night she turned up at my place for a spot of 'rehearsal' wearing nothing but a raincoat. Neither will she, I suspect; Susie had turned up just after her.
"Nat's totally committed to her company now' Actually, I'd known this, for Natalie Morgan had succeeded Susie as Scottish Businesswoman of the Year, after succeeding James Torrent, her late uncle, as head of the office supplies giant that bore his name. "You should keep your eye on her, Oz," he added, quietly.
I looked at him, surprised. "Why? She doesn't fancy me, does she?"
Ewan gave a deep theatrical chuckle. "Far from it. She hates you, actually."
Surprise turned to astonishment. "Me? What have I done to deserve that? Come to think of it, I seem to recall saving her life once."
"That counts for nothing. She blames you for getting involved in that business in the first place. Don't ask me why, but she does."
I shrugged. "I can live without her love."
"I'm sure you can, but that's not why I say you should keep an eye on her. She's a very ambitious lady, and she is not content simply to run her company in its present form. She wants to use it as a base for expansion by acquisition, and one of her main targets is the Gantry Group."
I whistled. "Is it now? She's wasting her time then. Susie has a controlling interest in the business, and I can tell you now, selling out ain't in her plans, or in mine."
"There are minority shareholders, though, aren't there?"
"Yes, but very much a minority."
"Nonetheless. I don't know a lot about company law, but if a significant offer came in, your wife might be told that she had an obligation to all the shareholders to accept."
"Who'd tell her?"
"The courts, possibly."
"Do you know this is going to happen?" I asked him.
"Not at all," he insisted. "I know that the thought has crossed Nat's mind, that's all, because she told me. Talk to Susie, Oz. If I were you I might be thinking about buying out the minority interests and taking the company private again."
I could see the logic in that, and the sense; I even knew how it could be financed. But then I thought of Jack Gantry, and his newly recovered interest in the Group, and realised that it wouldn't be as easy as it sounded.