Linus behind the lines

Interview, Oct, 1998 by Kitty Bowe Hearty

For most of us, war has been reduced to an abstraction, something fought on paper or in movies. The recent war in Bosnia, however, was a conflict of the most primal sort. It was fought over religion, ethnicity, and land, and it manifested Itself in the harshest, most tangible of human cruelties: rape, carnage, genocide. And yet, for all the coverage provided by the modern-day twenty-four-hour news cycle, the Bosnian crisis barely impinged on the consciences of the majority of people in Western Europe and America - including those who had the means to Intervene In a productive way.

A few non-Eastern European films addressed the war, notably the little-seen Welcome to Sarajevo (1997). But now the HBO drama Shot Through the Heart, which airs on October 4, finally brings Bosnia into our living rooms, and the story it tells Is one that anybody can relate to. Two lifelong friends suddenly find themselves on different sides of the conflict when one of them, Vlado, realizes that the other, Slavko, is the enemy sniper behind a string of cold-blooded killings in Sarajevo, Including that of a friend's young daughter. Slavko is played by Vincent Perez and Vlado by English actor Linus Roache, who previously gave superb performances as men grappling with ethical dilemmas in Priest (1994) and The Wings of the Dove (1997). As a man devastated by unacceptable truths in Shot Through the Heart, Roache gives life to feelings that can scarcely be borne.

KITTY BOWE HEARTY: Why was the civil war in Bosnia so hard for people to understand?

LINUS ROACHE: I think it was two things. One, it was so complicated, it was difficult to get your head around it. The other thing was willful denial, and I have to be honest, I was guilty of that. I knew what was going on but I couldn't follow it; I couldn't relate to it. What I liked about the Shot Through the Heart script was that it put faces on the war: The film follows two people who actually don't care whether they are Slavs or Muslims but who get caught up in the conflict anyway.

KBH: Do you think the reason people were in denial was because it was a war in Europe?

LR: Before doing the film, I thought of it as being a very distant conflict, but going there blew all that away for me. Sarajevo's a beautiful city with a cafe culture, very cosmopolitan. The people there are like people in Paris or London or New York, living side by side and not really conscious of their ethnic backgrounds. Even when the war broke out, there were Serbs still living in Sarajevo and fighting with the Muslims against other Serbs. The whole thing was mad.

KBH: Your character in Shot Through the Heart becomes more interesting as he becomes more isolated. You've played other morally isolated loners, too.

LR: Yes, they can be very intriguing to play. You never know what a human being is made of until they're tested.

KBH: How does that apply to Vlado?

LR: He's an everyday man placed in an extreme situation where it seems there's no way out. He could have backed down. He could have killed himself. There were hundreds of other options but some kind of conscience kept pushing him to do the morally correct thing - which means doing something atrocious. It's an almost unbearable catch-22. I think that epitomizes this particular sort of war.

KBH: What about Merton in The Wings of the Dove?

LR: Oh, highly ambiguous, that guy. The trouble with Merton is that he's passive; it was his not acting that caused chaos. That's why he infuriated people. It was quite painful to watch myself in that role. He's not a man's man; he's weak, but also very true to some kinds of male conditioning. Of all the films I've done, I was the most uneasy sitting through that one. That may be my male pride: I don't want to be seen like him even though I knew I had to play him the way I did. To me, The Wings of the Dove is about how much we are willing to give for the sake of romantic and sexual love.

KBH: Are they the same thing?

LR: There's a kind of illusion about love, especially in the movies. It's that idea that finding the right partner is like finding God. I'm not saying that love isn't powerful - it is. I've been in a relationship for ten years and it's great. But in The Wings of the Dove . . . was that love? I don't think so. It was just about self-gratification, but I liked that the film was honest. The final scene in which Merton and Kate [Helena Bonham Carter] make love is not erotic - it's a nightmare.

KBH: Your dad [actor William Roache] is very famous in England. . . .

LR: Yeah. He's like a national institution. He's the sole member left in the original cast of the longest-running soap opera in the history of man, Coronation Street [which began in 1960]. I played his son on the show for a while when I was a kid.

KBH: Did his celebrity affect your feelings about fame?

LR: Yeah, I pushed it away - I didn't like the attention. I remember going with him to some event and it was just crazy - it was like the Beatles had arrived or something, just ridiculous. I got quite upset by it. It caused a lot of aggravation at school, as well.