Arts.Guardian.co.uk –
Was playing a fabulous drag queen a bit of a stretch for the down-to-earth, blokey Douglas Hodge? Hardly, finds Maddy Costa
Before he became a bona fide actor, Douglas Hodge did impersonations of comedians and other famous people in working men’s clubs, an act he once toured round Nato bases in Europe. There, he shared the stage with a troupe of dancing girls, the memory of which makes his blue eyes glitter. “The girls running off stage, with their fishnets and high heels and spidery eyelashes, chucking their clothes on the floor, the smell of them, the coarseness of it, was the sexiest thing.” He pauses, frowns. “And now I’m backstage with the dancing girls doing all that.”