| This Is London Interview 2 |
| Maybe the experience has also diverted him from a midlife crisis. Unlike many actors of his generation, he has been married for what seems to be 150 years - 'Yeah, it is about 150! - No, actually it seems like yesterday that I met Shirlie,' he corrects himself immediately. 'Are we still in love? Oh, absolutely. Everything I do work-wise would be nothing without her because I wouldn't have anyone to show it to. I'm very sensitive about projects and I know that if it strikes a bad chord with Shirlie then it's just not right. She knows me as well as I know me and I couldn't do without her.' After some cajoling, Kemp will tell you that he met the former backing singer for Wham!, 'at the premiere of the show Yaketty Yak', and they married a few years later in 1988, 'but you don't want to hear all this mushy stuff, do you?' They have a daughter, Harley, now 13, and a son, Roman, nine, and the family lives in Hertfordshire, 'where there are always queues of boyfriends waiting for Harley, which is as it should be. Shirlie and I let our kids' friends come over and watch TV and stuff, and hope that we've given them enough common sense to do the right thing.' He admits that his own youthful heyday in Spandau Ballet was 'fuelled by excess - the clothes, the videos, everything. I haven't kept anything from that time though,' he shudders, I have this need to constantly move on.' While three of the band members, Tony Hadley, John Keeble and Steve Norman brought back Spandau Ballet for a recent Eighties revival tour, Kemp didn't join them. 'I don't even think I was asked,' he adds. 'But then, they all know I'm happy doing what I'm doing, which is probably why.' There was also the slight matter of the court case three years ago when Martin's brother and fellow Spandau Ballet member, Gary, ended up fighting the other three over the band's royalties (Kemp won). 'Well, I haven't seen the other three recently,' he says, 'but if I bumped into them on the street, then of course I would say hello. But I am close to my brother and always will be.' Family is, and always has been, a big deal for Kemp. Brought up in Islington, he remembers his childhood as 'very poor but very happy. I was absolutely spoilt with love, but incredibly shy. I think my face was permanently buried in my mum's bottom for the first seven years of my life.' When he was seven, his mother Eileen took him to the nearby Anna Scher stage school, 'just to bring me out of my shell. And it worked. The first thing I did was Jackanory and it just went on from there.' Then, when big brother Gary started getting involved with Spandau Ballet, the whole pop scene started to look more appealing. 'I couldn't believe the fun I was having, playing my brother's songs and being in the band. I made more money out of playing bass than I ever should have done.' Kemp's life now is all about acting and he's looking forward to seeing the response he gets to Daddy's Girl, a two-part psychological thriller. Kemp plays Chris Cooper, father to 17-year-old daughter Emma (Stephanie Leonidas), who enjoys a close relationship with her dad until she starts to suspect that her mother, far from walking out on the family, may in fact have been murdered by Cooper. Kemp is ideal for the part, an actor capable of marrying familial concern with brooding menace quite brilliantly. He tried to crack Hollywood years ago, but his brain tumour was diagnosed and those ambitions were, quite rightly, shelved. But he might well get a second chance. He's been offered 'a nice little film' with Reservoir Dogs star Michael Madsen 'and maybe Harvey Keitel too' called Red Light Runners, playing a white-collar criminal. He's also due to start work on a cop drama called Serious And Organised, playing, what else, 'a copper who's not bent, exactly, but quite colourful, shall we say! But,' he says, stretching his long legs, and preparing to leave, 'I'm not going to sit around, waiting for the big film that might never come. I'm just too busy enjoying my life at the moment.' © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 06 September 2002 |
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