IAIN F. McASH interviews SIMON MacCORKINDALE, a star of ‘JAWS 3-D’, who hasn’t stopped working since he went to Hollywood three years ago
Husky British actor Simon MacCorkindale denies he has any affinity for sharks, yet admits that the voracious creatures have loomed large in his flourishing career these past twelve months.
He stars in Jaws 3-D which opens in Britain in time for Christmas, and he has the name part in a new American tv series called “Manimal” as a crime-busting professor with the advantage of being able to catch the bad guys by transforming himself at will into a panther, snake, bird – or even a shark!
Says Simon MacCorkindale who believes in making things happen himself. And happening they are – in America.
Simon MacCorkindale breezed into the London hotel where we’d arranged to meet. He was dressed in a navy blazer, open-neck shirt and pale blue trousers, apparently oblivious to the cold and rain outside.
plays an impoverished young man who marries a heiress (Lois Chiles) who is murdered. “What you learn from such a magnificent cast as ours,” he says, “is discipline. When, for instance, Bette Davis turns up much earlier than her call, I reckon that’s the way to behave. I’m sure I learned a lot through osmosis; perhaps in years to come I might re-create a Ustinov-ism or a Bette Davis-ism without realising it.” Death On The Nile marks Simon’s major film debut. He’s since made The Riddle Of The Sands with Michael York.
Simon MacCorkindale, 26, provides Jenny’s romantic interest in The Riddle Of The Sands. In real-life, he is married to talented young actress Fiona Fullerton.
“It’s a super part for me,” Simon exclaimed. “I had just finished my role in Death On The Nile when this film came along. Jenny and I were sent on a crash course to Cowes to learn all we could about sailing to make us look convincing on the screen.
“I had wanted to be an actor since I was about ten or eleven years old. My family had nothing to do with acting, and I first sprang it on them when I was about sixteen. Fiona’s father is an Army Colonel, and my father is a Squadron-Leader, so we both shared a Services background. We didn’t meet through our families, but indirectly through our work. The discipline is very similar in both professions. I wouldn’t have minded a career in the Services, but acting just happened to appeal to me more.”