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SEAN HAYES | JEREMY NORTHAM
British actor Jeremy Northam makes his U.S. television debut starring as Dean Martin. Northam is best known for his role in the feature film "Gosford Park." The recipient of the prestigious Olivier Award (the British equivalent of the Tony) for his role of Edward Voysey in the play "The Voysey Inheritance," Northam has had great success both on stage and in film. On stage, his credits include the title role in "Hamlet," "The School for Scandal," "Country Wife," "Love's Labour's Lost," "The Gift of the Gorgon," "Three Sisters" and, most recently, "Certain Young Men."
Northam first came to the attention of American audiences in the feature film "The Net." His feature film credits include "Emma," "Mimic," "Amistad," "The Golden Bowl," "An Ideal Husband," "Happy, Texas," "The Misadventures of Margaret," "Enigma," "The Winslow Boy" and "Gosford Park," for which he and the cast won the 2002 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture. He currently stars in "Possession."
INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY NORTHAM
Once he read the script for MARTIN AND LEWIS, Northam was immediately drawn to the role, yet intimidated by Martin's public persona. "I was amazed to be asked to play it, but it was kind of frightening because he was such a well-known and well-loved person. He was an icon, a sort of mythical modern figure," said Northam.
The movie is not a retrospective of the lives and careers of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Rather, it is a study of the relationship between these two legendary performers and their ultimate parting. Northam was attracted to the way the script "showed their partnership through their contradictions as personalities. I liked that it explored the gap between what we knew of their public performing selves and what we have to imagine about their private lives. The story has an unsentimental view of a partnership that I believe was based on mutual curiosity and admiration and a certain amount of mutual envy. These two men would not have naturally been friends, and yet you watch as there is this very real growing affection between them."
 In preparing for the role, Northam tracked down footage of the duo from their Copacabana appearances and the Colgate Comedy Hour, and he watched several of their films. Northam observed that while Martin had a tremendous confidence, "I think he was rather bemused that the world took him so to its collective bosom. I wonder how much he really thought of his own talent," he said. Asked whether or not he could identify with Martin, Northam said, "It is hard to find similarities with people who have become so iconic, until you break it down into more prosaic, domestic, ordinary things. I have certainly never had a career as an international recording artist, but it is interesting to think of Dean doing all sorts of ordinary things. I don't think that in any way belittles his appeal, his skill or his charisma. We are all, after all, human beings."
Understanding the intricacies of the Martin-Lewis relationship was key to Northam's astonishing portrayal of the legend. In exploring their ups and downs, he observed, "Dean had sort of a natural performer in him, and I think Jerry was a natural performer in quite a different way. It must have been very difficult for both of them to work at that level of intensity and not wonder from time to time, 'who is the audience looking at here?' It must have been hard for Dean to not feel like he was just the straight guy and for Jerry to not feel like he was just the monkey on top of the organ. I think those insecurities must have been hard to suppress."
Martin and Lewis were also mutually envious of one another. "Jerry was never going to be the leading man or the smooth crooner, and Dean was never going to have the wild imagination that Jerry had," noted Northam, "Jerry also longed for the security of intimacy, which was completely foreign to Dean. It made him uncomfortable; it did not mean that he was a cold person, he just didn't believe he could provide Jerry with the things he needed."
Martin and Lewis split up in 1956, almost ten years to the day after their partnership began. Since their break-up, fans have wondered about the duo and what ultimately drove them apart. "In this movie, we don't seek any pat answers for why Martin and Lewis were the way they were. But, there's the old cliché: it is called show business, not show friends. There are times for me personally, working in this business, where I think, 'I give up, I don't know what people want to see or what they want me to do' and I don't think these thoughts are foreign to most actors or performers. There is kind of a love-hate relationship with performing, because it is oddly humiliating at times."
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Which Martin & Lewis performance
do you like best?
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