Witness for the Prosecution’s Billy Howle: ‘I don’t aspire to be a sex icon’

The actor talks new Agatha Christie drama, stripping off, and depression
Witness for the Prosecution actor Billy Howle at The Zetter Hotel in Clerkenwell
Daniel Hambury
Ellen E. Jones23 December 2016

It takes a particular sort of man to compel women to behave the way they do in Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution.

In the upcoming BBC adaptation (this year’s “Christie for Christmas”), it falls to 26-year-old actor Billy Howle to convey all the complexities of murder defendant Leonard Vole. And he’s very good at it.

If you want to know what qualities it takes to propel a young actor from a supporting role in the single-series E4 drama Glue to several major film roles in the space of 18 months, it’s all there.

Scarborough-born Howle is the second of four brothers. He lives in Forest Gate, east London, but still feels connected enough to his hometown to have an opinion about the local architecture (“without getting into the politics of the borough council, there’s been some poor decisions made”) and to plan on returning one day. “I have this dream of having a small place by the sea where I can just sit and write.”

Witness for the Prosecution - in pictures

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Those big, sensitive eyes, that love of creative solitude — if there’s a Hollywood actor comparison to be made it’s with Ryan Gosling. Howle is also given to the kind of feminist ally pronouncements that would make for a good Hey Girl meme. “Lena Dunham is a hero of mine...” he says at one point, stopping mid-sentence to consider his vocab — “heroine?” — before plumping for the gender-neutral option and continuing: “... hero of mine. She is not scared to be exactly who and what she is.”

This isn’t just a detached admiration either. Howle has experience of flashing the flesh on camera and remains conflicted. “I don’t aspire to be a sex icon, I don’t know why anyone would. It’s an uncomfortable position to put yourself in… it’s something that we all haven’t really made our minds up about and that’s why we find it all so interesting. But I can definitely see that the male form can be sexually objectified as much as the female.”

He has modelled for Prada in the past and thoroughly enjoyed it. “It’s nice sometimes to feel a bit more debonair,” he says, laughing. Previous representatives for Prada include Eddie Redmayne, Tim Roth, Adrien Brody and Emile Hirsch but joining such esteemed company hasn’t entirely assuaged Howle’s insecurities.

He is endearingly candid: “My skin always worried me and still does, to a degree.” Then there is a more generalised self-doubt, “For me, it has been quite acute at times… I’m not frightened to say that for me it has led to extreme anxiety, stress and depression. Depression is something I’ve lived with since I was a teenager.”

Acting was his own personal solace in dark times and so, between roles, Howle has spent some time leading drama workshops for troubled teenagers in pupil referral units, following in the footsteps of his mother. He feels strongly that young men should be encouraged to “not just talk about their feelings but actually express them… this is a generalisation but young men, I think, need to be physical, y’know?”

He’s learned about how to get on in a sometimes difficult business from his female co-stars on Witness for the Prosecution. Andrea Riseborough, who plays Vole’s common-law wife, “taught me not to be scared to say what you want to say” and Kim Cattrall, who plays a fun-loving wealthy widow, “reinforced the idea in my head, that if you know what you want, or you know how you want something to be, don’t let anybody else persuade you otherwise.”

Billy Howle in Witness for the Prosecution 
BBC/Milk

His most special bond was with two-time Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan. He describes the “real atmosphere and chemistry” of their audition and they’ve worked together twice, on Chekov adaptation The Seagull (out later this year) and then on an upcoming adaptation of Ian McEwan’s 2007 novel On Chesil Beach. “She is very… Irish,” he says when asked about their friendship. “She’d take the piss out of me and I’d think it was serious and then she’d have to go ‘I’m joking’ and be quite stern about it.”

Whatever it is, it’s working. Yes, there’s no doubt that the ladies love Billy Howle, though thankfully not with the same tragic intensity as they love Leonard Vole in Witness for the Prosecution.

But there is one woman who is more excited than most about his ascent to stardom. “My mum has already set up a projector… everyone on the street is coming round to watch. It feels like the Moon landing, or something.”

Follow Ellen E Jones on Twitter: @MsEllenEJones

The Witness for the Prosecution starts on Boxing Day at 9pm on BBC1

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