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Desert Island Discs

Mark Strong, actor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mark Strong has appeared in more than 60 films, along with numerous TV dramas and plays. His career took off after he won a leading role in the landmark 1996 BBC series Our Friends in the North, and since then his screen work includes dramas such as Syriana, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Zero Dark Thirty and The Imitation Game, as well as the fantasy and comic book worlds of Stardust, Kick Ass and Shazam. In 2015 he won the Olivier best actor award for his London stage performance in A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller, in a production that also won him great acclaim in New York. Mark was born in London, the only child of an Austrian mother and an Italian father. His father left the family when Mark was a baby and has played no part in his life. Thanks to his mother, Mark is fluent in German, and he spent most of his school holidays with his Austrian grandmother. His mother had two jobs to support them both, and Mark attended state boarding schools in the UK from the age of six. His first taste of performing came in a punk rock band at school, but he began his further education by starting a law degree in Germany, before changing course and returning to the UK to study drama. Most recently he has been filming the TV drama Temple, in which he plays a rogue surgeon operating in abandoned tunnels beneath a London underground station. DISC ONE: Spanish Stroll by Mink DeVille DISC TWO: Are You Lonesome Tonight (Laughing Version) by Elvis Presley DISC THREE: Helden by David Bowie DISC FOUR: Police and Thieves by The Clash DISC FIVE: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by Devo DISC SIX: You’ve Got the Love by The Source featuring Candi Staton (Eren’s Bootleg Mix) DISC SEVEN: Peter Piper by Run DMC DISC EIGHT: Whole Lotta Love by Ike and Tina Turner BOOK CHOICE: Magnum Streetwise: The Ultimate Collection of Street Photography LUXURY ITEM: A wind up radio CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Helden by David Bowie Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.7

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks podcast.

0:08.4

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to

0:12.8

take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.5

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:21.0

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:44.0

My cast away this week is the actor Mark Strong.

0:47.2

His career took off after a breakthrough role in the landmark BBC series Our Friends

0:52.0

in the North, first broadcast 25 years ago.

0:56.3

Since then he's appeared in more than 60 films as well as acclaimed stage and TV productions,

1:01.4

revealing his immense creative agility.

1:03.6

You've perhaps tried and failed to forget what he does to George Clooney's fingernails

1:07.6

in Siriana.

1:08.8

He gave equally memorable performances in other thrillers like Tinker Taylor's Soul Just

1:12.8

by and Zero Dark 30. He's at home in the sci-fi fantasy and comic book worlds of Stardust,

1:18.7

Kickass and Shazam, not to mention Slick Action series Kingsman and 2009's Sherlock Holmes.

1:25.6

In 2014 he returned to the London stage in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, winning

1:30.9

the Olivier Award for Best Actor and the New York critics were equally impressed when

1:35.6

the show transferred to Broadway.

1:37.7

He credits a childhood spent in state boarding schools from the age of just six, with teaching

1:42.7

him to take on roles as a way to survive.

1:45.8

These days audiences love him because he's so good, especially when he's being bad.

...

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