| Timothy Simon Smith is born on 14th May 1961 in Dulwich, London. His mother Ann was a teacher as well as an artist, a landscape painter to be precise; his father Ernie was a journalist following a high political wing and who had changed family’s name into the Jewish Roth during the post-war period. Maybe in commemoration of the Holocaust victims, maybe in order to avoid any problems when moving to certain countries not really in behalf of post WWII England. Tim’s sister named Jill will follow her father’s profession. Their parents fell into divorce when Tim was still attending the Primary School.
Tim grows up in a middle-class environment even if his parents didn’t actually swim in gold. Having failed the compulsory exams in order to enter the prestigious Dulwich College he is compelled to attend the Tulse Hill, a once renowned school but failed into disgrace and where most of the students were from a lower working class or they were even a sort of neo-delinquents. Together with his definitely tiny physical structure and maybe a somewhat passive and sensible nature, this thing makes him a target for bullies and he becomes a victim of persecution and beating. That’s why, according to legend, he begins changing his accent, adopting a perfect cockney one, in order to disguise himself and camouflage himself among the others. Furthermore he’ll learn how to detect any sign of violence or fight beginning in order to sneak away from any possible dangerous situation.
During time he’ll become one of the most versatile and brilliant actors in adopting any kind of different accent and that leads sometimes to take him as an American born guy.
He first gets in touch with acting right while attending that school, that’s to say thanks to a school play named The Dracula Spectacular for which he’s chosen to play Count Dracula’s role. Later on and during several interviews he’ll state that he basically pissed his pants because of fear when walking on stage!
But before discovering a true love for acting and understanding that that would have been what he wanted to do in his life, the teen-ager Tim wanted to become a sculptor; that’s why he attends the Camberwell College Of Arts which he’ll leave soon enough because in the meantime the passion bubble for acting blows up. So he begins to run here and there, from a theatre to another in order to catch some jobs, even if always refusing to attend any acting school. History says that he walked only once into the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art: drunk and in order to see rehearsals for Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus.
He’s able to gather some job but it’s only in 1982 that a wave of good luck comes, which will launch him on the screen for the first time. Thanks to a punctured tyre of his bike, one day he stops in front of the Oval House where he walks in to ask for a pump; he gets informed that there are auditions going on in there for an Alan Clarke’s movie called Made In Britain. He’ll come out of the room with the role of Trevor in his hands, that’s to say the main character.
The first part of 80s is a lucky one for Tim, not only for his private life which in 1983 presents him with a son, Jack, born from his relationship with Lori Baker. But also for his job, considering that with The Hit movie in 1984 the 23 year-old guy gets his first award, that’s to say the Evening Standard Award as Most Promising Newcomer, and also a BAFTA nomination. Some other jobs will follow, always in England. Even if he doesn’t love his country that much, especially for what his career is concerned, considering that he’s flying high to the American dream.
If the first half of the 80s sees him up to grade, unfortunately the same thing can’t be said for the second half. Indeed in 1987 his life with Lori Baker collapses and it isn’t much better under a working point of view.
He must be content with stopping in Paris for a while after having shot To Kill A Priest in 1988, gathering some debts, yet being able to stay far from a London that is always bleaker and bleaker for his outlooks. He comes back only to see his situation getting even worse. His ex lives with his son in New Cross, while he, workless for nearly a full year, lives in an awful flat in Sydenham. Pretty often drunk and acting the slut, as he says with his words, meaning that he’s compelled to do something which definitely doesn’t fit him.
The wind changes in 1989 with The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover and even more the year after with Vincent And Theo. Always in 1990 Tim flies off from England once again and takes refuge in Ethiopia for shooting a movie called Farendj. A sad event of that year is his father’s death while he was on location. Once back in England he’ll shoot Rosencrantz & Guildestern Are Dead, but maybe because of some not that good reviews, England itself really begins to be too small for him, who’s even making things worse by refusing to attend any audition for any kind of job, partly because of some pride and arrogance, partly because of fear of failure which according to him would lead him to make a bad performance and lose the role.
America saves him in 1992 when it takes him away from his mother country for Jumpin’ At The Boneyard. Indeed, American accent is not a problem for him.
Once in Los Angeles and thanks to some lines read in a pub, obviously drunk and in front of a bloke named Quentin Tarantino, it’s thanks to Reservoir Dogs that his name will be known also overseas. Tim won’t leave this country anymore except for some occasional returns to England. Indeed America will give him not only a career and success, but also a wife, Nikki Butler, married in Belize in 1993, and two sons: Timothy Hunter (1995) and Michael Cormac (1996), whose names come from the couple’s favourite writers, Hunter Thompson and Cormac McCarthy.
With the evil Archibald Cunningham character in Rob Roy in 1995 it comes also the nomination at the Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, an award that unfortunately Tim won’t see assigned to him.
Even if he avoids “box-office” movies and prefers to remain in his beloved independent and indie strand, anyway Tim’s career goes on doing great. From 1995 up to 2008 he shoots something like 29 movies which feature some cooperation with top directors such as Tim Burton, Werner Herzog, Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola. Even with our Italian Giuseppe Tornatore who will give us a work of art like The Legend of 1900, a movie that according to me has been definitely underestimated and which hasn’t been rewarded with the right deserts.
In 1999 Tim will make his directorial debut with his very personal The War Zone, a tormented and dark movie concerning the themes of incest and abuse. A too much familiar theme for Tim who only during these years will reveal he himself has been a victim of child abuse, even if he’ll never tell the name of the guilty person, stressing only the fact that this person was nor his father, nor anybody of his immediate family.
In 2008 it comes also the box-office movie. Indeed Louis Leterrier chooses him for the role of the villain Emil Blonsky in The Incredible Hulk by Marvel. No one knows if this job is a partner in crime of if it’s only because of some need for constant work, anyway by imitating what other actors did before him, Hugh Laurie/Dr.House being among them, even Tim lands on TV screens under the role of the human lie detector Cal Lightman in Lie To Me series, now running the second season.
One of the best actors on the market. A unique gaze and an intriguing personality, extremely funny and nice as it can be absorbed watching his interviews. As much as his modesty and his intention to remain far enough from footlights. According to me Tim Roth is a quite underestimated phenomenon who probably would deserve more attention and consideration, even if it really seems that he’s happy with what he already has. Anyway, just give him our fans’ love and devotion!!
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