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The Mysterious David Suchet

By Sharon McRill, Borders.com Video Editor

David Suchet, is probably best known as the eccentrically observant detective Hercule Poirot from Agatha Christie novels. Suchet is not the first to play Poirot, but he has defined the character in ways that other actors haven't broached. Suchet never expected his Poirot run to be more than a year, but now more than a decade later he is still reveling in his love of the quirky, little man. Recently I spoke to Suchet about how he feels defining a fictional personality, his thoughts on Agatha Christie, and how he developed that kooky, little walk. 

When you were first approached with the role of Hercule Poirot, given that other people had played it before you, what was your greatest challenge in bringing something new? 

DS: Well, the first thing I did was to remind myself exactly how he was played, in a "Poirot" with Peter Ustinov [Thirteen at Dinner]. He played Hercule and I played Inspector Japp. I think it has to go down on record publicly that it was probably the worst performance I've ever given in my life, but having said that, I watched Albert Finney doing Murder on the Orient Express and other "Poirots." I can't remember their names off hand, but the two famous ones, of course, [are] Albert Finney, although he only did one, and Peter Ustinov, who has done very, very many. 

When I was asked to do it, I was a little bit wary of taking over from such great giants as these, but as always, being a classically trained actor, I went back to my text. That really for me has always been the foundation for everything. If I get it right with my text, then I get it right for my audience. When I started reading the stories, I discovered a little man that was virtually nothing like I had seen. This rather excited me because although I have great admiration for individual interpretations of him by especially those two, I still couldn't really relate what they were doing to what was in the novels, and I really hasten to add, I don't mean that as a criticism. I was not being judgmental about it, but what I was feeling was great excitement because I thought, wow, the challenge here is to find and to develop and to personify the character from the written word [as] Agatha Christie has described him, and to try and become this very, very complex creature. He's not a two-dimensional creation at all. 

He's not just someone with a huge ego and a funny walk or he's not just someone with a huge [amount of] prissiness and eccentricity. It's not that simple. He's a very complex human being. Now, he had a lot of qualities, some of which I share, but most of which I don't, thank goodness. But I think it's fair to say that I looked on it as a huge challenge -- to try and get for Agatha Christie the truth of her character onto the surface and up there on the screen. 

Were you a fan of Christie's work before you had started doing these? 

DS: No, no, Sharon, I wasn't. By that I mean, I wasn't not a fan; it's just that I never read her really. I didn't really know her apart from the old Miss Marple film that I saw. I was a great fan of Joan Hickson, and I was told that she was the closest to Miss Marple, and I quite enjoyed [them] although I would never have gone to the cinema. I didn't go to the cinema to see Orient Express or Peter Ustinov's film because it's not my genre of entertainment. That's just my personal thing. 

In a sense, that was good as well because I came to the books totally fresh. I was very lucky, very lucky. And now my respect and admiration for the late dame Agatha Christie has really increased a hundred-fold. I think she was a brilliant writer and the first of her kind really. 

She really made her mark in literature beyond many mystery writers. One thing that I heard is that the Poirot character was developed before Agatha Christie met her husband. Then when she married him, he had many of the qualities that Poirot had, and as she wrote, she put some of her husband's characteristics into Poirot himself. 

DS: You're teaching me something now. I didn't know that he had similar qualities to Hercule. 

I think it's interesting that she had incorporated her husband's characteristics and that she was looking for a man that had those kinds of characteristics. I think it's pretty funny and speaks a lot about Agatha Christie. [Laughing] 

DS: Well, I have to say that 95 percent of my fan mail is from women. [Laughing] 

I also read that you have a hard time switching in and out of the French accent while you're working, and so you stay in it. 

DS: Well, I decided to stay in it because it's a very particular voice. You see, every time somebody meets Poirot, they think he's French, so I can't use a proper Belgian accent. If I used a proper Belgian accent, which is slightly guttural and has a bit of Dutch in it, people would know I wasn't French. It can't be Parisian because people would know that. 

So what I did was I listened to the radio, Belgian radio, quite a lot -- to the French-speaking channel and also to the French radio stations. It's a mix and match really, a mixture of French-speaking Belgian and country French. It's very, very specific, and it also had to be an accent that could be easily understood because there's no point in speaking a brilliant accent if nobody can understand what you're saying. [Laughing] 

That's true. 

DS: It was a very particular accent. Now, of course, you film in sections. You may be on camera for five minutes and then you've broken for half-hour or an hour while they set up for the next shot, and then you come on and you're on camera for five minutes. So if I was to lose that accent, I'd be speaking more English with my own voice than I would in Poirot's voice, and I couldn't do it. I just couldn't sustain it. 

It would probably be hard on your vocal cords too. 

DS: Well, not really so much the vocal cords as the actual parameters of the accent that I use. It had to stay the same for each and every episode and it has had to stay the same for the last ten years. 

Did you have any idea that you'd be doing Poirot ten years later? 

DS: No, I didn't. I thought I'd play this little man for one or two years. I was contracted originally for three, but there was an option to be taken after the first, so in my own mind I only saw it [as] a year's work. I never thought it would take off like this at all. I mean he's become a cult figure worldwide. 

It's true. And how do you feel about being the definitive Poirot? 

DS: I've never been asked about [the] "definitive." How did I set out to be the definitive? Well, of course, you don't set out to. Definitive is a label that is put on you like a particular make of honey or a particular make of coffee. 

They say "definitive" and the jar of Poirot and then the brand you're buying is David Suchet. But I'm flattered and thrilled to bits that in my life as an actor, there's one character that the public has taken to their heart and said, "Well, I didn't think anybody else can play it." I mean that's a wonderful, wonderful compliment to me! And I'm extremely grateful to the people who turn on and watch. If I don't have my audience, I don't work, and I take immense care of the public. I think I have a duty to them. 

One of the things that I wanted to ask you is about working in different mediums. You've worked in films, you've worked in television, and you've done an incredible amount of live theater. What's your favorite? 

DS: I've made it a rule in my life never to have favorites in terms of my work. I may have secret ones, but I mustn't let them come to the foreground. I'll tell you why, Sharon, and it's the same with so much of the things in life. Supposing I said that film was my favorite. Then when I came to do a radio drama, I wouldn't subconsciously care quite enough in comparison, and I've made it a rule that whatever I'm doing at any particular time has to be the favorite. 

That's a great way to look at it, and that's actually how I approach a lot of my interviews. I approach them with the idea that I want to learn from this person and it makes it a really fun interview. 

DS: Yes, I agree with you. I think that attitude has to go through a lot of life, really, because the things you don't like doing and the things to work hard at, you get to like doing, I think. 

One of the questions that almost everyone (whom I've told that I was going to be interviewing you) had was: "Ask him about Poirot's walk." 

DS: [Laughing] Isn't that funny. I'll tell you the whole story about the walk. When I did the film testing, I had been cast and we did some film tests just to see how it all looked -- the make-up and the costume and things before we actually went into proper filming. The producer, Brian Eastman, and I sat down to have a look at what we'd shot, and we were sort of pleased that the character was there, and he said, "Well, you know, it's nearly there, but there's something missing. There's something missing." He said, "You know, the funny thing is, David I don't know what it is. It's something to do with the movement. And I turned around and said, "Could it be the way I'm walking because maybe I'm walking too much like me and it's not reflecting the character." So we watched a bit again and he said, "You know, I think you're right." 

I remembered reading something about his walk in all the books that I read in my preparation and I couldn't remember what it was. Anyway, I can't remember now which book it was, but after about three or four books, the page opened (mercifully) at this description and I've almost learnt it by rote because it was such an important thing. It said, "Poirot crossed the lawn with his rapid, mincing gait, with his feet tightly and painfully enclosed within his patent leather boots." And I thought, Well, there we are. There's a description of the walk, now how are we going to do it? 

Well, how I do it, really, is just to keep everything really below my waist and above my knees very tightly clenched. [Laughing] I'll just let you use your imagination, I'm afraid, and if you do that, you can't take very long strides. And I just practiced, practiced, and practiced until I was able to walk like that without it looking totally ridiculous. His walk should bring a smile to your face, but you should never really laugh at Poirot. You should always smile with him. 

I think that's a fantastic way to look at Poirot, although I have to say, I do laugh at the walk. [Laughing] It's very quirky. 

DS: Oh, he is a quirky, little man. 

And he must be a joy to play. 

DS: I love him. I really do. There's something incredibly, wonderfully irritating and adorable about him. He drives me crazy as I'm sure he drives the audience crazy, as I know he drove Agatha Christie crazy with his fastidiousness and his pomposity and his ego, But he has in Christie's books, as well, an enormous twinkle and charm. 

He knows how to treat a lady and ladies adore to be treated by him. He really does make a woman feel like a woman or makes a woman feel like a lady, should I say. He loves that, and there's no ulterior motive with Poirot at all. I remember an actress saying to me on the set once: "I have suddenly discovered why women adore Poirot," and I said, "What? Why?" She said, "Because I feel so safe with you." There's no ulterior motive for Poirot because he's not after anything but interesting company. There's no goal beyond that. 

Another thing that I wanted to bring up is the architecture of the sets. There's a wonderful combination of English countryside and then these very modern Deco-esque houses. 

DS: Yeah, they're wonderful. 

Who does the sets? 

DS: Well, a lot of them, Sharon, are actually filmed on location. These are real places. And they actually exist and they're gems. They are real gems. My flat, my apartment, however, is based on an apartment. The outside of the apartments, actually, that you see is a real block of flats in London in Charter House Square. We call them White Haven Mansions [in the shows]. But the actual block of flats, believe it or not, is now on the tourist route in London. [Laughing] 

Oh, that's fantastic! 

DS: I know. People were saying to me, "they said they went past and they mentioned your name and 'that's where Poirot lives'." I said, I don't believe it. But the inside of the flat is taken from a direct copy of a late '20s-'30s flat in that building. 

My last comment is that I loved your performance as Louis B. Mayer in RKO 281. It was very different. It thought it was a fantastic movie, and I was so happy that HBO made it. How did that come about? 

DS: Oh, it's extraordinary. I was playing Salieri in [Amadeus] in London. And they asked me to do this script, and I'd have to say that my first reaction was I don't know if I can take anything on while I'm doing Salieri. Well, in the end one thing led to another and I said, "No." Sadly for them, they recast it with another actor that didn't work out for them, so they came back to me. But when they came back to me, I'd finished Salieri, you see. And the dates fitted perfectly. 

They sneaked all my scenes into two days. They were very kind to do that because it meant I could get a little break before starting my next job and a little holiday as well. I put on a gray wig and became somebody completely different, and it seemed to have been very well received. I'm delighted. Thank you very much for saying so. 

You are just absolutely charming. And I just love speaking with anyone with an English accent. 

DS: [Laughing] In fact, there is a great attraction. It's always been -- ever since England and America became separate nations, there's always been for the Brits and the Americans an attraction to each other. It's a very, very common thing, and in England, you'll find lots of American wives and British husbands. It's a sort of strange thing. I don't know whether it's the accent that initially attracts or not, but I know that the Brits love the American accents and the Americans love the Brits, so it's pretty good really but thank God we speak the same language otherwise it would be difficult, wouldn't it? [Laughing.] 

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