This article was taken from The Guide in The Guardian, Sat 19th August 2000. Julian Sands discusses his latest film, Timecode, and the legacy of being EM Forster's most famous leading man.

Sifting Sands

Fifteen years after being the world’s most famous English gent, Julian Sands has finally found job satisfaction - as Mike Figgis’s masseur.

Still best known for his lead in Merchant-Ivory’s A Room With A View, 15 years ago, Julian Sands has kept a relatively low profile - in Hollywood and Europe since, but has worked with everyone from David Cronenberg to the Taviani brothers. In recent years, he’s appeared in five Mike Figgis films, including his latest, Timecode, in which he plays the clown-like Quentin, an interfering masseur to the Hollywood hotheads.

How id you and Mike get together?

It came about when I was at drama school. I was a big fan of the People Show, in which Mike was a performer, and when I heard he was making films I was very interested to meet him. When we did The Browning Version I think we developed a good shorthand for working together. Then I played the strange creature in Leaving Las Vegas, and the male nurse to Rob Downey’s bottom in One Night Stand, then Loss Of Sexual Innocence which was in some way the most important thing I’ve worked on. Mike likes to have an ensemble of familiar people around him, like forming a band.

How did your character come about?

Mike first wanted me to play one of the executives - a token Oxbridge Brit in the Hollywood studio - and I ventured that I became an actor to avoid being that, so could I try something else? I had this idea for a masseur, who’s a bit based on my younger brother, Quentin, who came through LA a few years ago where he had a pretty naughty time being a masseur. Also Mike was one of the cameramen, and I think the reason he allowed me to be a masseur is between filming I would give him a shoulder rub.

So you were the off-set masseur as well?

I was the group groper. I was everyone’s bitch.

Shooting it must have been pretty different.

The only way we could make sense of who was going to be where and when was by using sheet music, with each bar representing five minutes. We rehearsed it through a couple of times but really we learned by doing it, and after each run-through we would chill for an hour or two and then watch it back (on four monitors) and refine it some more. Also everybody was very exposed to each other. Nobody could dissapear to their trailer once it was up and running, you were all there on the same stage. It was only 10 days of rehearsal and 10 days of shooting, which was very tiring.

So how many versions were shot?

Fifteen. So some days we were shooting one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was always so different depending on the time of day, the light, the traffic, what mood people were in; sometimes they were feeling snappy and could improvise a funny spiel and other times they were mute.

You’ve come a long way since A Room With A View.

That became an international reference point with which I could very easily be pigeonholed. I was in my mid-20s when I did that and now I’m 41. A lot of the work I’ve done since then has been more substantial perhaps but much less viewed, which is a choice I feel quite lucky to have had. I can’t think of anything since that has been that widely viewed.

Boxing Helena?

The thing about that was every person who went on to trash it was an enthusiast for the project originally. It was the hottest kind of project around and it was written about all the times, which, of course, is a great warning sign. But the way it was received was almost career-ending for everybody, which was an interesting sort of experiance to endure. And by the way, I quite like the result.