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British photographer reveals how he charmed his way into A-list actors’ dressing rooms by pulling pints at theatre bars

Olivia Colman, photographed at the Noel Coward Theatre in 2012, just before beginning her performance in Noël Coward's Hay Fever - Simon Annand/Simon Annand
Olivia Colman, photographed at the Noel Coward Theatre in 2012, just before beginning her performance in Noël Coward's Hay Fever - Simon Annand/Simon Annand

One might wonder how renowned British photographer Simon Annand managed to charm his way into the dressing room of so many A-list actors and actresses.

An intensely private and unseen world, the 65-year-old was granted access to observe the likes of Dame Judi Dench and Sir Anthony Hopkins 30 minutes before the curtain raised, and they found themselves on stage.

He revealed to The Telegraph that it all began 37 years ago, pulling pints at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith where he got to know them personally behind the bar as he served them drinks.

He had worked behind the bar for two years in the early 1980s. As much as he loved the theatre, he was “frustrated” by the job. So, buying a second-hand camera, he persuaded Griff Rhys Jones to allow him to take some shots, including in his dressing-room just before the actor was to appear in a staging of Charlie’s Aunt.

He said: “Immediately, I thought, ‘I haven’t quite seen that before’ and for the next 37 years I started doing all sorts of actors, in the dressing room where they’re getting themselves ready to go out there and face the music.”

Now he is lifting the lid on some of the backstage secrets by revealing hundreds of photographs in a forthcoming publication.

Elisabeth Moss, Comedy Theatre, The children's hour, 2011 - Simon Annand
Elisabeth Moss, Comedy Theatre, The children's hour, 2011 - Simon Annand

There are images of Jude Law, just before he transformed into Hamlet at the Wyndham’s in 2009, with a photograph that he had with him of Fred Astaire to “lighten the mood of the Prince’s melancholia”.

Then there was Juliet Stevenson, minutes before her appearance in The Heretic at the Royal Court in 2011, seen next to the word ‘listen’ which she had written in huge capitals “to remind herself to do so in the performance”.

Other stars include Tom Hiddleston, seen working out for Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse in 2014, “preparing for a role full of physical and mental challenges”, Mr Annand recalls. Or, Jeff Goldblum at the Vaudeville Theatre in 2010, limbering up for The Prisoner of Second Avenue, by playing the piano “non-stop” for 20 minutes.

He said that while some method actors will be immersing themselves in “aspects of the performance as they get closer to curtain-up”, for example, through music or not talking to anybody, other actors “chose not to get into the part until about two minutes before they step on the stage”.

Rosamund Pike - Simon Annand
Rosamund Pike - Simon Annand

He has been repeatedly struck by how dressing room atmospheres are affected by the type of play that is about to be staged. “If a play is difficult subject matter, the atmosphere backstage is lighter, so that they can cope with what they have to do on stage. If what they’re doing on stage is light and comedic, they let the energy go down [backstage].”

He added: “One of the aspects of my photographs is capturing some of the melancholia that exists in the dressing rooms.”

He noticed that on his first assignment. Although Mr Rhys Jones was portraying “a very ebullient character” in the riotous farce Charlie’s Aunt, the atmosphere in his dressing room was entirely different, essentially “more melancholic… more introverted”.

His book, Time to Act, will be published on September 14.

In an essay written for it, Victoria Broackes of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which has staged touring exhibitions of Mr Annand’s work, writes: “The actors are seen as workers, not celebrities. His photographs reveal a fragility and humanness without undermining the courage that comes with being a performer and doing what many of us would find practically impossible.

Dame Judi Dench, snapped by Simon Annand in May 2013 - Simon Annand/Simon Annand
Dame Judi Dench, snapped by Simon Annand in May 2013 - Simon Annand/Simon Annand

"They also give an insight into the intimacy of the actor’s dressing rooms and the various ways they mentally prepare: a calming cigarette; a final bit of chat with co-stars; the finishing touches of make-up; or perfecting the body language of their character.

“Contrary to the glamorous image of theatre dressing rooms that we might imagine, most people would be surprised to see the cramped conditions in many British theatres today.”

Mr Annand said some of facilities backstage are so minimal, with only one toilet, for example, that one actress was reduced to urinating in a sink.

Theatres were long seen as ideal places for thieves and vagabonds to operate and Annand believes that the dressing rooms in old buildings reflect a time when actors were still looked down upon.

David Tennant about to begin his performance at Richard II The Barbican in 2013 - Simon Annand/Simon Annand
David Tennant about to begin his performance at Richard II The Barbican in 2013 - Simon Annand/Simon Annand

He said that each actor decorates their dressing room in their own way. In fact, he is even planning another book with 300 pictures conveying just how different they are: “The spectrum is from absolutely nothing at all. No memorabilia. Nothing personal [to] totally covered in everything that reminds them that they have another life and a family… and lots of things about the play which help them get into it.”

Many are full of cards sent by other actors and bouquets of flowers. He said: “Some of them just let the flowers sit there and die. I’ve got pictures of four-month-old flowers which have gone grey, brown and brittle. I'm never quite sure why they do that. There are some others who are real gardeners, who chuck them out.”

If an actor is playing a famous historical character, such as Winston Churchill, Mr Annand said that they will often have images of those people “dotted around the mirrors, to give them a sense of the journey they need to go on that evening”.

Singling out the Theatre Royal Haymarket among historic West End playhouses, he said: “You know that the greatest actors of their generations have been in these rooms. You can feel it in the mortar. If only the walls could talk.”

Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart about to begin their performances in Waiting For Godot in 2009 - Simon Annand/Simon Annand
Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart about to begin their performances in Waiting For Godot in 2009 - Simon Annand/Simon Annand

He has photographs of theatrical knights, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket as they prepared for Waiting for Godot.

He said: “It’s one of the more remarkable examples – the only one I can think of – where two actors have agreed to share the same room. Mostly stars of that calibre would have their own room."

In the photographs, added Mr Annand, they’re about to "leave the room which, to me, was ironic because those two characters [in Waiting for Godot] can never leave their own hell in the story".

In the book’s foreword, the Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett writes: “It is as difficult to capture actors and creative teams in unselfconscious action as it is to arrest birds in flight [but] there lies Simon’s skill.”