Busy Bates does more than brood

They say that if stars survive long enough they get the good fortune to play scene-stealing character roles. Alan Bates, the prestigious English actor who held his own as the master brooder back in the ‘60s and early ‘70s (“Whistle Down the Wind,� “Zorba the Greek,� “Far From the Madding Crowd,� “The Fixer,� “Women in Love� and “The Go-Between�), is a prime example.

He’s been ubiquitous on screen lately in a series of eye-catching minor roles, playing the prim and proper butler on the verge of a nervous breakdown in last year’s “Gosford Park�; the debonair neo-Nazi in last summer’s “The Sum of All Fears�; the paranoid scientist who can foretell disaster in “The Mothman Prophecies� earlier this year; and the down-and-out Irish barrister and former rugby hero in his latest film, “Evelyn,� which will open Friday.

As if that weren’t enough, the classically trained veteran of stage and screen recently earned a Tony for his powerful performance earlier this year as an elderly and superfluous nobleman in “Fortune’s Fool� on Broadway.

“There’s only one actor I wanted to play Tom Connolly in ‘Evelyn’ -- and that’s Alan Bates,� says Pierce Brosnan, who used his clout as the star of the James Bond franchise to produce this labor of love about a single father’s unprecedented fight against church and state in 1953 to win custody of his children in Dublin. It’s a real-life drama adapted from the book by the eponymous daughter and central figure that stars Brosnan as the “unfit� father barely able to make ends meet as a house painter and singer in the local pubs. He enlists the aid of a solicitor (Stephen Rea), an Irish American lawyer (Aidan Quinn), and a crusty old veteran of the court full of blarney and bluster (Bates).

“He’s a lovely character and someone who’s made certain decisions about life,� Bates explains by phone from England, where he recently underwent hip replacement surgery. “You know, he likes the challenge, I mean, he just enjoys that return to the fray. And then when he gets on to this loophole in the law, he really feels he’s justified himself and that he’s as good as he thought he was.�

The 68-year-old Bates, who hails from the Midlands suburb of Allestree, Derbyshire, admits that Connolly is a bit of a departure from his memorable assortment of on-screen martyrs, misfits and malcontents. “No, he’s not a brooder. But, you know, as you get older, my God, the parts get more varied. There’s a lot of fun to be had doing a lot of different things.�

Bates, who leans more toward the instinctive rather than the analytical when he’s playing a role, says the thick Dublin accent wasn’t difficult to pull off. But he hates to think that he hams it up in the role. “I don’t like to think that’s what I do, but I think a character like that is larger than life. And there are those people in life that you wish you could be like.�

Even Brosnan can’t help impersonating Bates’ lovable growl and sharp gestures when discussing his co-star. “I’m doing great playing opposite Alan in this impressive Georgian house and on an abandoned rugby field, and when I see the picture I suddenly realize that he’s just taking every moment. And he has this lovely moment in the house where he does a little stagger. And you know his character has been drinking to his heart’s content all his days, and that’s what’s brought his professional world to an end. It’s just the little details of his acting ... like the way he [phrases] those ‘howevers’ at the end ... so powerful and memorable.�

What Brosnan didn’t realize about Bates at first was that he was always in character, even when he appeared to be having an off day. “But of course he’s having a full-on day,� Brosnan says. “He’s keeping the tempo of his character’s life and keeping the inner life going -- all calmly. When you watch him on screen and see his process at work -- boy, what you see and what the camera sees are two different things.�

Bates says his current string of small film roles is due to the exposure he got awhile back starring in the off-Broadway drama “The Unexpected Man.� “Your time is limited, so you have to make an immediate impression,� the soft-spoken actor adds.

Of his role as the servant in director Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,� Bates says he liked playing such a “locked-up man in a conformist way with a lot of turbulence underneath.� In fact, he adds, the man is on the edge of alcoholism and is a conscientious objector.

“He’s smoldering. It was a great company of actors and it’s a very rich film about human behavior. Altman is a wizard, a kind of Merlin figure. He trusts you and he gives you the setting and the atmosphere to perform.�

For his part, Altman says Bates worked the longest and hardest of any actor in the film. “He’s the best. He stood in the background and was tertiary, but he was there every day, very attentive, working with our technical advisor on the finer points of being a butler. I can’t think of an American actor who could do that.�

With “The Sum of All Fears,� Bates got to play a very nasty Austrian fascist who orchestrates the bombing of the Super Bowl in Baltimore. His charismatic Web-cam speech is particularly haunting. “You know in many ways it’s a fantasy that’s very close to horrific reality because there are such calculating monsters in the world. In the end, you have to play with a bit of style and wit, if you can find it.�

The brooding scientist in “The Mothman Prophecies,� however, is much closer to the signature Bates role. “In a way, his character is not unlike the one I play in ‘Evelyn’ in the sense that he’s opted out and is brought back in by a particular case. And they’re kind of outsiders, the kind that people cannot deal with. And that’s what makes them interesting.�

Always busy, Bates has just completed a comic turn as a has-been American movie star in “Hollywood North,� a Canadian film directed by Peter O’Brian (“The Grey Fox�).

While waiting for his next film and stage roles, the icon of the ‘60s English cinema cites “Women in Love� as his favorite because it’s D.H. Lawrence -- and, well, they’re both from the same region. “It was great to be a part of such a classic period and I’m just glad to keep working.�