ROACHE CONFESSES NO QUALMS ABOUT TAKING ROLE OF GAY PRIEST
By: Edward Guthmann

When Linus Roache was offered the lead role in "Priest",
the story of a Brittish clergyman who falls for another
man and suffers the humiliating censure of the Roman
Catholic church, he had no qualms about saying yes.
"I just emotionally connected with it immediately", the
emerging actor, 31, said by phone from his home in London.
"I had a feeling that the story was more important than
me and my performance and my career."
"There was something powerfull, very confrontational, very
witty and funny and real in it. I just thought it was
asking a lot of big questions that needed to be asked.
And in no way did it feel like it was condemning or 
attacking the church."
It helped that director Antonia Bird, with whom he had
worked in 1989 on the TV police series "Saracen", was at
the helm. "With Antonia, there's no veneer, no hiding",
Roache says, "She has incredible passion and focus, and
she cares, she really cares."
Like Bird, Roache was not raised Catholic, and therefore
studied with a priest prior to filming. "I went to Mass
a lot, and studied several priests and how they worked.
Not being a Catholic, I had a certain idea there would be
hard-and-fast rules about things like celibacy or the 
secrecy of the confessional. But then I'd go to priests
and get quite varying responses on how they would deal
with those issues."
As much as he loved Jimmy McGovern's script, Roache 
requested a few changes. "I felt there were certain things
that needed developing: for example, the relationship
with the lover, Graham (played by Robert Carlyle). It was
more sexual thing to begin with, and we all felt the
audience could better identify with the two men if they
saw a real tenderness and real potential for a wholesome
relationship."
Father Greg isn't the first gay character Roache, a veteran
of the Royal Shakespeare Company, has played. He was Jeff,
the gay friend in the play "A Taste of Honey", and also
played the lead in Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II".
Roache doesn't see "Priest" as a gay film per se. "The
gay issue is just a part of it", he says, "I saw Greg as
someone who's repressing his sexuality, which was the
key and the lead-in for the charracter ...it would be a
very different scenario if I were playing a gay character
who was completely out. That would be a different kind of
research and a different investigation that I'd have to
go on."
As for the frank love scenes with Robert Carlyle, Roache 
odds, "It's difficult doing love scenes anyway, male or 
female, because it's a very false situation to be intimate
in. You've got people poking cameras and lights at you.
But I worked well with Robert Carlyle and I felt that it
worked, that we did came across as a real, genuine warmth.
I just wish he'd shaved."
Roache, who has lived for six years with his girlfriend,
actress Rosalind Bennett, says he doesn't know what he'll
do next. "There's some interest, agents and scripts. But
I'm not rushing into anything at the moment. I don't feel
any need to."
"There was a time when I drew a sense of identity through
my work, and I didn't realize how driven I was. I'm 31
now, and I know that's not old, but it's given me time to
get a bit more objective. I'm a human being first and an
actor second."