Sir Derek Jacobi has spent almost 70 years in showbusiness – but there’s just one director he’s worked with who’s “terrified” him.
The veteran actor, 87, opened up about his life and career in a new interview, revealing that working with theatre director John Dexter was a difficult experience.
Jacobi and Dexter worked together multiple times at the National Theatre, with Dexter directing him in Othello in 1964 and Armstrong’s Last Goodnight the following year among other plays.
Dexter, who also worked with Sir Laurence Olivier and Dame Maggie Smith, died during heart surgery aged 64 in March 1990.
When asked whether he had always got on with people he worked with, Jacobi told The Guardian: “Mercifully, I have forgotten the bad times. Genuinely. I must have had them, but too infrequently for them to be in the front of my memory.”
However, when nudged by his husband Richard Clifford, Jacobi said: “John Dexter was hateful. His method was to bludgeon a performance out of an actor. He directed me in lots of things at the National. I was terrified of Dexter. I don’t think he would have got away with it today.”
He added that William Gaskill, who also directed at the National Theatre, was also terrifying, saying that he was “slightly cleverer, but just as nasty”. Gaskill died in 2016 at the age of 85.
Jacobi has received a Tony Award, a Bafta Television Award, two Laurence Olivier Awards and two Emmys over the course of his illustrious career. One of the founding members of the National Theatre, he’s appeared in a number of Shakespearean productions – from Hamlet and Macbeth to King Lear and Romeo and Juliet.
Speaking to The Independent in 2021, Jacobi said that it’s not about the awards for him. “Awards are lovely, and they go in the cabinet with the glass door so everyone can see them. But it’s not about that,” he said.
“They always want you to say something political or original. I prefer to keep my mouth shut. I’ve seen the terrible things it does to those who open their mouths too wide. I’ve never been a political animal. Most actors are. I’ve never marched for anything.”
Now 87, Jacobi is still working and is set to appear in forthcoming comedy-drama Frank and Percy, starring Ian McKellen, Roger Allam and Joanna Lumley.
In his chat with The Guardian, he revealed that he wants to make it to 100.
“I want to experience what it will be like to be 100,” he said. “I want to find out what state I’m in.”
