When teen pop idols go bad 2004

Oct 17, 2004

If, like me, you survived adolescence in the 1980s, you’ll probably remember Luke Goss as one of the twin stars from peroxide-topped boy-band Bros.

You know, the British group whose infectious 1988 single When Will I Be Famous? became something of a teen anthem among Brosettes? But there’s no need to watch one of those “Where are they Now?”-style exposés on the erstwhile pop idol. Proving that there’s a whole lot of life after boy bands, Luke Goss is back in the big time, having recently co-starred with Wesley Snipes in the big-budget Hollywood action movie Blade 2.

He’s in the Mother City shooting his latest project, Charlie, a biopic based on the life of the notorious 1960s British gangster Charlie Richardson.

It’s Goss’s first bona fide lead role and being South London born and bred, he’s understandably excited about the opportunity to explore a character close to his roots.

“It’s a film that truly embraces gangsters, that captures their world, like The Godfather in London, you know what I mean?” he grins.

According to Goss, Charlie follows the mould of classic ’60s character-driven British crime capers like Alfie and Get Carter. “Those are gangster movies!” he enthuses before digressing into his favourite line from Get Carter, his eyes taking on the clinical sheen of Michael Caine’s hit man as he hisses: “You’re a big man, but you’re out of shape. I do this for a living, so just sit down …”

Squirming in my seat slightly, I quickly change the subject. Having just played the villainous vampire Nomak in Blade 2, is he worried about being typecast by taking on the role of yet another bad boy in Charlie?

“No, I think typecasting is the best thing that can happen to an actor,” he replies. “If you’re lucky enough to be stereotyped then that means people are recognising what you have. I hope I get typecast. Robert De Niro was typecast. If he wasn’t typecast or aware of his own niche then De Niro wouldn’t be De Niro!”

‘When I’m in character I stay in character’
And like De Niro, acting consumes Goss. “I lean towards the method school of acting, so when I’m in character I stay in character,” he explains.

“On set I get referred to as ‘Charlie’.” Listening to Goss slip in and out of character, veering from Charlie’s South London gangster-speak to the vampire dialect of Blade 2′s Nomak without so much as a blink of his steely blue eyes, it’s hard to imagine him as a fresh-faced, packaged pop idol. But back in the ’80s this is precisely what he was.

“I remember watching Duran Duran when I was a kid and seeing the limousines, planes and jets and thinking ‘That’s the way to do it, man!’”

Do it he did, playing sold-out concerts across the globe to audiences in excess of 60 000 people with twin brother Matt. Then, after two world tours and 13 hit singles, the duo suddenly disappeared from the pop spotlight.

So what went wrong? Nothing, according to Luke who chuckles. “I was a teenager. Playing drums was great but it just stopped being enough for me. I thought: ‘How can I be this successful and have no voice?’ The more I saw of the world the less I felt a part of it and more detached.”

While brother Matt continued in the music business, Luke looked towards acting to provide a platform for his own creative voice. “When I started acting I suddenly felt really alive and really challenged. Theatre taught me a lot, to trust my instincts,” he confides.

It’s an ongoing lesson that wasn’t learned overnight. The 30-something actor is no pop-flop turned wannabe new kid on the Hollywood block.

He spent some four-and-a-half years honing his performance skills on stage in a string of successful musicals and presenting shows on MTV and VH-1. It was only at the age of 31 that Goss actually even made his film debut with Two Days, Nine Lives.

Next he teamed up with Wesley Snipes in Zigzag and again in Blade 2, which garnered him a nomination from Saturn, the prestigious US sci-fi film academy.

“That was such a wonderful feeling because we all want to be good at what we do,” Goss remarks. “We tell ourselves we’re good at it but I think if we’ve got a shred of decency in any of us we all have insecurities and acting is a very insecure profession anyway.”

If his super-calm interview demeanour is anything to go by, then Goss is a damn fine actor. In fact, his composure is almost unnerving, even Zen-like in its inertia. He recognises this, admitting: “I’m not very animated as a person. I chat and I’m verbose, but I’m not overly animated. And he’s the same way.” He’s the same way? It takes me a second or two before I realise he’s talking about Charlie. Guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he stays in character!

Luke Goss may currently be surfing a wave to Hollywood stardom, but this is one actor who isn’t afraid of getting caught up in the trappings of the celebrity lifestyle.

Sure, he’s happy to hop around on a promotional tour of America with co-star Wesley Snipes for Blade 2 in the studio’s $20-million G3 jet, sampling sushi and sipping Cristal with James Brown blaring through the Bose sound system. Who wouldn’t be? But for Goss, this is merely a case of “bloody fun – boys and their toys on a bigger level. I’m not a fame-seeker. It just seems so wanky to me – I don’t see what it serves.”

It’s such a straight-talking attitude that led one British critic to suggest that he “shouldn’t take himself so seriously and should lighten up and enjoy life more”.

To which Goss matter-of-factly replies: “When you make a film, during the process it’s not about having fun. I mean, I don’t believe in acting, I believe in being. I’ve done nearly 2 000 performances in theatre and seven movies now and I take it really seriously because I love it. It terrifies me so that I’m forced to take it seriously.”

So what’s terrifying Luke Goss next? Well, his thespian talents are in high demand with possible roles in Tombraider 2 and Blade 3, while there’s also talk about Marvel wooing the chiselled performer to play that most enigmatic of comic book heroes, the Silver Surfer.

For Goss it’s now simply a question of paying his dues – “When I’m in a position to carry a movie that size I’ll definitely say to a studio I want to make it!” he declares.

For the meantime he’s happy writing a movie treatment for what he terms “an out and out Hollywood movie – you know a thriller meets a
set-up heist movie meets Mission: Impossible and a buddy movie?”

And next year he’s also starting his own film production company, that’s probably going to be called Blank Canvas Films – “because film is like a blank canvas”.

* Goss will be featured on Friday’s Top Billing on SABC 2 at 19.30.