Actor Robert Powell has appeared on the stage, in films and television series. Elisa Bray talks to Robert Powell about his career, his new role in The Picture of Dorian Gray, what makes good cinema, and being Jesus.

Robert Powell has been Jesus Christ. He grew the beard. He starved himself for 12 days. He performed so well he won Best Actor Award from TV Times, the International Arts Prize at the Fiuggi Film Festival and a BAFTA nomination for his portrayal of the Son of God in Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth.

Considering next year Powell will have spent 40 years as an actor, who better to ask the trick to acting success?

Powell insists to be a good actor you must have insight into yourself.

“You have to have a degree of self-knowledge. People are always saying actors are self-regarding but in essence they have to be. You are your own instrument. It’s not like a violinist who has a Stradivarius in a case. The actor’s got himself so he has to be as aware of himself as the violinist would be of his musical instrument — that’s the only thing you’ve got.” Before playing Jesus, Powell played “sensitive young men” — Mahler in Ken Russell’s title film, Jude the Obscure and Shelley the poet. His new role as Lord Henry Wotton in Oscar Wilde’s classic, The Picture of Dorian Gray, seems an unusually villainous role for him.

But Powell sees another side to the character.

“I don’t see him as the villain of the piece. It is other people who see him as the villain. I think he is an extremely charming young man who takes Dorian Gray down a road which ends in tragedy. But it is the way other people see it which is interesting.” Powell was surprised at his own agent’s reaction to his performance last week.

“He said ‘He is sooo nasty’. I was shocked! He said ‘Oh no, no, you play it very charmingly but you can’t escape the fact what he says is absolutely awful!’” Powell describes how he can hear a mixture of responses from the audience: sometimes sharp intakes of breath, tuts and stifled laughter.

So why the huge gulf between the actor’s response to his part and the audience’s interpretation?

He explained: “Acting is a very strange process for somebody who isn’t an actor because you work completely subjectively.” He describes it as being the same as everyday life. We all have our self-image and can be astonished when other people comment on our character as sometimes it does not sound like us at all.

He said: “You are two people: you are who you are and you are who other people think you are — and the two are very rarely the same. It is similar with acting. You approach a part from the inside and you do it the way you feel.

“If you are playing Hitler, for example, you don’t play him as someone evil because Hitler didn’t think he was. He thought he was doing the right thing. You have got to play it from his point of view and let the audience do the work.” But the one role Powell was unable to play from the inside was Jesus.

“That is the one part where the exception proves the rule. You can’t be subjective about playing Christ. Obviously I didn’t want to get too close to it because that might have led to all kinds of complications! I stayed well away from it.” Acting is hard work. Even if the actor is not starving himself for the role, doing stunts or throwing himself into the psyche of another person, he has to remember lines and that can be very tiring.

“I have huge amounts of energy but I suddenly realise how much being on stage a couple of hours takes it out of you. It takes masses amounts of concentration to recall the lines and play the part.” After playing Jesus of Nazareth, Powell made a joke about wanting a change from playing “sensitive young men”, but it was only after a film called Beyond Good and Evil that he “got away from it all and started to play heroes,” starting with The Thirty-Nine Steps.

Powell finds it absolutely impossible to name the highlight of his career. He says he had most fun playing Detective Constable David Ian Lovelace Briggs in TV series The Detectives alongside Jaspar Carrott. The comedian once famously said: “He was Jesus Christ and now I’ve got him down to my level.” Powell currently lives in Highgate, London, with his wife, ex Pans People dancer, Babs Lord. Have his children followed his career path?

“Oh no. My son is a systems developer for a computer company. He’s got a very nice job thank you very much — although he has got a short film he is in the process of editing. I think he wants to go for director and writer.” Of course, he picked up his love of film from his father.

Powell said: “Film is an extraordinary release. Good cinema is like a drug trip — you can enter other worlds and escape. I think that is very valuable. Not all cinema is like that — a lot of it is dross.” While the actor cites The Godfather as an example of great filmmaking in terms of storytelling and the use of the camera, he gets particularly enthusiastic about a recent movie he enjoyed.

Pirates of the Caribbean, he says, was “terrific” and a huge surprise. I mutter something about Hollywood and not expecting this choice from him and in a shocked, almost disapproving, voice he asks me: “Have you not seen it? Well you ought to! It really is very good indeed. And (he chuckles) Johnny Depp is lovely. He is terrific! He is extraordinary! Do go and see that.” And on that recommendation, I will.

You can see Robert Powell in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Churchill Theatre, High Street, Bromley, Dec 1-6, 7.45pm, Thur & Sat mats 2.30pm, £18-£24, 0870 060 6620.