BTJ: You had an interesting pre-comedy life too?
MS: When I came to London to make a go of it in the 1980s my son was born on New Year’s Day. We ended up homeless and in hostels with a new born baby and by the time we had somewhere to live he was walking. We were a dole cheque away from living on the streets.
My wife and I ended up in grim hostels in Paddington on Bayswater Road. One place was run by a Greek family who had a contract to put up Greek people who had come for surgery. It looked nice from the outside but then got less and less plush inside until you got to the top where we were and it was Dickensian. You’d be having breakfast next to a burns victim on a drip. Next door a woman we called Cat Lady used to heat up cat food and you could smell that wafting through. A dead guy was found in his room with piles of Penthouse and The Morning Star in chronological order. But there was a really good sense of community!
In the end we split up due to the strains on the marriage and my wife went back to Ireland, but now we are best mates.
BTJ: Stand-up and music saved you?
MS: In 1987 I had an epiphany in a club on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, I’ve always liked dancing and discovered dance music. I found a community which is really important to immigrants. It helps us rejuvenate ourselves, and it was through these friends that I discovered my ability to do stand-up and act otherwise I may not have done it. Out of that came the “big fish little fish, cardboard box” dance – that was me. I was living with Nick Frost in Highgate and on the train platform I saw a Radio 1 ad for Ibiza using the phrase. Nick said I should make a record but I didn’t want to be the Big Fish Little Fish guy.
BTJ: How do you choose a part? Can you smell a hit?
MS: I’m like the Dalai Lama, the older I get the less you know. You have to have faith. Sometimes I think things are shite and it wins BAFTAS!
Spaced was a different time. There seemed to be more of a free hand to let the talent do what they wanted to do, League of Gentlemen, Royle Family, Peter Kay…producers who had a good eye would just ask people to go off and do something. I remember Simon Pegg saying that Geoff Perkins was a big champion of them and told them to go off and come up with an idea. Now they say come up with something and when you bring it back we can finger it to death. They try to fit that puppy into that little box – it’s a puppy let it breath!
BTJ: To a certain generation you will always be Tyres
That’s the thing that people remember me most for. I’ve changed physically but it’s my accent that hasn’t changed so people hear me and turn round.
But I also get recognised for Kill List. I worked with (Kill List star) Neil Maskell in Utopia but was killed off in the first episode. It was brave writing to kill me off but for my ego it’s a pain in the arse.
BTJ: Then you went straight off and did Black Sea?
MS: it’s an ensemble piece mostly set inside a submarine. I play Jude Law’s best mate, right-hand man, who worked with him in the Royal Navy and is now working with him in the salvage business. It was great because we shot most of it in the Russian sub in the Medway and then did the rest of it in Pinewood.
BTJ: Have you done much in America?
MS: I did a short teaser for a feature film where I played a blind guy called An Evening with Dr Piskind, it’s a true story about a guy who got pneumonia, shook it off, went to bed and woke up blind. And then one night he gets lost and is helped by girl from the local strip club and she wants someone to talk to because she is pregnant. It’s about him getting back his humanity. We have most of the funding so its a goer. Robin Williams was involved in it at one point.
BTJ: You worked a lot with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Do you think you’ll team up again?
MS: I’d love to work with Simon and Nick again. Nick and I first became friends when he’s split from his girlfriend and I’d split from my wife. We were on a flight together and he asked to use my phone. Simon and I had the flat, Nick moved in and then the legend began! We shared with Simon for a while too. That’s why Spaced worked, because we tried to keep as close to the truth as possible.
Our careers went in different directions, but what’s lovely is that we are still in contact with each other and are in each others lives. When my mother died Nick came over the next morning and they came over when I got married (to writer Miranda Sawyer) in France.
NTJ: You are writing as well as acting these days?
MS: I’ve written a one man show called The Immigrant about my life. They say if you want to get a job book a holiday. If I want to get more acting work write a play. I’ve got another one, a two-hander, The Caravan. Sometimes it’s nice to let go and hear your words come out of somebody else’s mouth. Acting has brought me a lot of kudos but I’ve been a gun for hire, I’d like to be more creative. That’s what great about stand-up. Great comedians, Andrew Maxwell, Jimeoin, they can just pluck material out of anywhere.
BTJ: You seem pretty clean living these days?
MS: I stopped drinking. You get to an age where you can’t do it. Around Kill List the hangovers were just getting terminal and I was getting offered a lot of good work. I just became more conscious that I didn’t want to be a passenger in my head any more. I’m halfway through my life. In the past it was all hedonism, dancing, drinking, singing and shagging. Now I'd like my journey to be more intellectual, spiritual, dancing and shagging!
