Head’s roll: playing King Uther

Actor prepares by watching other royal roles.

McClatchy Newspapers

PASADENA, Calif. — They say the crown sits uneasily on the head, but for actor Anthony Head it fits like a sunburn. The eccentric librarian from “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer,” assumes a higher calling in NBC’s new series, “Merlin,” which premieres today. He plays King Uther in a prequel to the Arthurian legend. Uther has outlawed magic in his preroundtable Camelot, and when young Merlin arrives, he’s conflicted with the youthful Prince Arthur, and the fantasy begins.

“The thing about ’Merlin’ is it’s an opportunity to play with stuff I haven’t played in a while,” says Head, in a crowded dining room at a hotel here. “It is quite contained admittedly, but I do get to throw my weight around a bit.”

He prepared for his reign by watching several “king” movies such as “Becket,” “Lion in Winter” and “Joan of Arc.”

“Peter O’Toole was a great king. And he said Richard Burton had said to him, ‘Not everybody who wears a crown can be a king. It takes a certain kind of actor to fill the crown.’ And he could. And basically I think, touch wood, I can. But you have to fill it. You don’t play the king, but you just fill it, and my particular king has his insecurities. But he doesn’t feel insecure about being a king. And that’s fun to play.”

Head harbors his own insecurities. Though he’s been an actor since 1978, he constantly worries. “Every time you’re out of work you think, ‘This is it. I’m never going to work again. Where the hell am I going to get my next paycheck?’ By their very nature, actors are insecure. We wouldn’t want to dress up and be other people if we weren’t insecure.”

He admits he’s wanted to quit many times. Two summers ago was a particularly hard time. “I’d had about two years of everything was nearly — but not quite. Jobs would fall through because the money dropped out or something. I worked. I did things like ‘Sweeney Todd’ in a really nice role and then Tim Burton cut everything, and I ended up as a bit player. I went on tour with ‘Little Britain’ to Australia. I did two weeks because I had to come back for ‘Sweeney Todd.’ My agent had stand-up fights with the line producer. It was not a good time.”

But Head always lands on his feet. He’s best known for “Buffy,” but before that did a famous coffee commercial for Taster’s Choice, starred as the graying safecracker in “The Invisibles” (now on DVD), as the swinging dentist in “Manchild” and in dozens of other roles.

With his partner of 27 years, Sarah Fisher, Head confesses he often brings his roles home with him. “You know you’re going to be hell to live with. Ask my family about it. Sarah was once asked what was the most annoying character. I was playing Absalom in a Peter Shaffer play (“Yonadab”), this shining virgin. He was really boring. I did a series called ‘The Invisibles’ where I played this belligerent safecracker. I was a miserable old man. ...I was murder to live with. I was miserable. She can tell me and my daughters do too.”

They have two daughters, Emily, 20, and Daisy, 18, both of whom are following in their dad’s footsteps. “I waited till I got out of school until I did it professionally, but they wanted to do it professionally quite early on when they were 11 or 12 because there was a lot of stuff out there that they felt they could contribute to,” he says.

“I made this little noise about, ’Well, I don’t know ...’ Sarah said, ’Back in your box. Who knows what they’re going to do when they’re 25? This isn’t necessarily for life, it’s something they want to do now, they want to learn about, they want to take this challenge. And if you prevent them, when they get to 40 and they didn’t do it because you prevented them at that point when they wanted to, you’ll never forgive yourself because they’ll never forgive you.’ It’s taught the girls an enormous amount about confidence, not taking it personally,” adds Head, 54.

He knows what it’s like. “It’s really hard; it’s a very hard lesson. Rejection is a hard lesson anytime but when you really WANT a job and you don’t get it ... The worst thing is being second. Also-ran doesn’t do it. But they’ve learned. It’s not personal. It’s literally whether it’s the right fit or not.”

Being well-rounded as he is, may be a disadvantage, he thinks. “I’ve often wondered whether to be more dysfunctional would make me a better actor, because some really great actors are terribly dysfunctional. I don’t know, because they have this wealth of emotion to draw on because they are so dysfunctional. I’d like to try and be a good actor and hold it together.”