Daniel Sharman Facts

Daniel Sharman talks to Wonderland about his quarantine and his future

The quarantine affected us all, how was yours? Has it influenced your work and your projects?

My life was already a bit quarantined even before it all started. I had just finished filming Cursed and wanted to take some time off. When my break was about to end and I was about to go back to work, it all stopped. My quarantine was like going back to hibernation. Since the quarantine began, I have cultivated a vegetable garden, I have started taking online courses and cooking, like everyone else. I'm a little fed up at this point. You know, there is a limit to the things a person can cook or to gardening.

Everyone seems to be getting tired of their quarantine hobbies now.

Definitely. And now I'm starting to not be so excited that it's all on hiatus anymore. My quarantine went like this.

And have you been in Colorado for the duration of the quarantine or in different places?

At first, I was in Los Angeles. I have many friends who live near my house, so we decided to spend it together. We built this little community in Los Angeles, had dinner together, and spent time together. Then things eased, we dispersed and we all went to different places. I came to Colorado to relax, paint and draw. I'm not sure what awaits me in the rest of the quarantine.

It must have been difficult especially for you. I was watching your Instagram the other day and noticed that you spend a lot of time with friends on adventures in different places. What is the next place to visit on your list or the first thing you will do when everything reopens after quarantine?

One place I've always wanted to visit is Japan, maybe a backpacking trip. This is my next adventure. And Mongolia is another place I would like to visit. I recently started biking, so biking in those places would be fun.

You've finished filming Cursed, which was just released on Netflix and has a lot of great reviews. Before, you worked on Teen Wolf, The Originals, and Fear The Walking Dead. That's a lot of fantasy roles, is there anything in this genre that particularly appeals to you when looking for roles?

It is not intentional. I remember when I finished acting school, one of my teachers said 'You know, you look very strange. You look a bit like a weird elf. They'll always get you in fantasy stuff. ' And in the end, it turned out to be true. So I guess I'm looking for something different, after Cursed, out of the sci-fi genre. But at the same time, it's a very funny genre. It's a very popular genre and people are very passionate about it and get involved. It's always nice because people follow your work in these strange realms. I feel very lucky that everyone is so patient with me, in my different roles.

Your most recent work, Cursed, belongs to the sci-fi genre, as many of your previous works. What are the aspects of your creative process or your preparation for previous roles that were useful to you for Cursed?

I don't think I get close to any character with a few details. Whatever I do, no matter how fantastic or how wild that world is, I try to make the character as real as possible. Sometimes it's more important to build some sort of backstory and I've worked with someone on this project, who helped me figure out how to build a character from scratch. It was a very interesting process. But whether I'm playing Lorenzo de Medici, in the final season of I Medici, or I'm playing a murderous monk, which is my role in Cursed, my process always includes many details, as specific as possible. I do my homework and bring everything into the world that I have to represent.

Cursed is based on the story of King Arthur and there have been many different interpretations of this story on TV or in the cinema. When you prepared for this role, were there any previous actors or performances that you studied?

I try not to look at the work of others because I think I tend to recreate certain things. My process involves starting from scratch. Sometimes I look at something and take inspiration. For example, I saw The Seven Samurai to understand what an efficient assassin looks like on screen. I took some ideas from there and incorporated them into my role. The most challenging part of this role, however, was eliminating the emotions. I had to build this traumatized character, who is incapable of being confident, so I really focused on his lack of empathy. It was a rather lonely process to go through for nine months when we shot.

I've seen some clips of Cursed and your character has amazing makeup. And I seem to remember that even in Teen Wolf you were wearing all that werewolf makeup. It seems like you have to spend a lot of time, maybe more than other actors, on makeup. How do you use that extra time? Do you have any activities or routines?

I listen to a lot of music, but actually, during those moments you get a chance to get to know the makeup team very well, and you end up talking for hours. They deal with me in the morning, which is not a pleasant experience. It starts to get very friendly and that's one of the things I love about working in a great team. You know people and you build relationships, you know very intimate things about the people you get closer and closer. That time also allows you to gradually get into character, so at the end of the makeup, you put on your costume and are ready to be your character. For Cursed, it took me about two hours between makeup and costume, and at that point, I was ready to work. That's a good thing for me because I'm not a morning person at all.

You said that you went through the quarantine taking it easy and that you are looking for your next project, perhaps outside the sci-fi genre. Is there any project you have already started? Or what kind of project do you see yourself in?

In the next few years, I would like to continue exploring characters and things of all kinds. My biggest wish would be to go back to England and do theater there. I hope to be able to work on something like that or at least to go back to England for future productions. I don't have specific plans yet, I'm waiting for the right thing to come up. I've been around for the last three years, it would be nice to go back to work at home for the next job. It was very nice to have time in this quarantine to figure things out and think about the future.

Right right. Well here's the truth: I'm a terrible cook and this isn't going to be my second career.

Is there anything you have tried to do at least?

I made bread but it came out so bad it was basically a giant scone. It was too hard, but luckily I love scones. So it was my biggest failure, but also a huge success because I ate a giant scone for three weeks.

I will be happy to provide you with some photographic evidence of my masterpiece. Even if the photos won't do it justice because you won't be able to understand how hard that bread was. I'm working on it, I'll send you some photos. If you need a paperweight or something, that would be perfect.

Maybe you could use it for lifts as the gyms are closed.

Exact.

Source: https://danielsharman.it