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Ian Hart plays Beethoven
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Playing a deaf 19th-century composer could be perceived as an odd choice for a cult, hip actor like
Ian Hart, who is usually associated with more modern protagonists. However, having the chance
to play Beethoven in Eroica was something the Liverpudlian actor saw as a great challenge,
especially when it came to the history of the piece. Beethoven is an iconic figure and his passionate,
mesmerising music is still celebrated all over the globe 200 years on.“Beethoven was a brilliant pianist,” explains Hart, who played Professor Quirrell in the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter
And The Philosopher’s Stone.“From an early age, he was touted around as the best piano player in
town. He knew how good and how clever he was in what he was writing. He knew it was completely
different and revolutionary.”
The symphony itself represented a watershed – a complete departure from the traditional, “classical”
style of the period – in that it introduced the “romantic” movement.Although Hart wasn’t a fan
of classical music – he confesses that the film Amedeus “was the be all and end all of my
knowledge” – he can still appreciate the significance of the score. “Eroica was very experimental. It
included elements that Beethoven had been working on for over four years and there were sounds mixed together that just seemed wrong to the majority of people at that time.
“For me it’s like Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys album, and I felt that Beethoven had a lot in common with Brian Wilson.Wilson became a recluse and stayed in his house for four years after recording that album, because he felt that no one understood what he was trying to do.”
Hart also likens this musical revolution to the discovery of punk rock, Elvis Presley and Eminem in
more recent popular music.
“Eminem has taken a music form that wasn’t his own and made it his own and made something new
as a result. He’s taken it onto a different level with help from his producer Dr Dre.
“Composers like Mozart and Beethoven were doing variations on a theme –performances of an
hour and a half of variations to show how clever they were.They were doing it to show that they
could play the same seven-chord progression but in a different way over and over again; alter it, layer it and structure it differently.That’s what Dre is doing, it’s what producers do.They take sounds and
melodies and mix it together with a beat. Musically, it’s as great a construct as anything that Mozart or
Beethoven would do, I think. I’m sure that many people would disagree but, I think there is a lot to
be said for what modern producers are doing, it’s not simple.”
Hart has played another great musician, John Lennon, twice for the films The Hours And Times and
Backbeat. However, portraying a legend such as Lennon, or indeed Beethoven, wasn’t as formidable
a task for Hart as one might think.
“John Lennon is a symbol for a lot of people but they don’t know who he really was and what he
was really like,” explains Hart.“So, for me, there was a lot of freedom in playing a character like
that. So long as you do that thing with your eyes and you occasionally make John Lennonesque faces,
people are comfortable with it; that does half the job of convincing an audience that everything else
you do is consistent with the truth.
“It’s not necessarily easier playing real people but you can get more information about them to make
your performance more rounded.You have access to the same material as the writer; you can go to
the books the writer went to or you can listen to the same piece of music.With a fictional character,
a scriptwriter may have a very clear idea in his head of what the character is like – he may have
written it about his mate or his cousin - but that never translates into the script.”
The main challenge for the 39-year-old actor was his preparation for the role, which meant music and
conducting lessons, reading up on the composer himself as well as trying to get to grips with the
score. “I had to start from scratch,” explains Hart. “I had to make up a new character based on what
I knew about him and fill in what the story needed: a certain amount of aggression, a certain amount of
anger, a feeling of isolation, of being misunderstood, which was partly borne out of his deafness.
“The more deaf Beethoven became, the less he was able to communicate with people, so he became
frustrated and angry. I guess he was starting to feel paranoid as well.You would feel paranoid if you
can’t hear what people are saying about you.
“I also had conducting lessons from a conductor from the Royal College of Music, but I still found it
difficult.The musicians in the performance could have reacted really badly; an actor coming in with a
funny wig on and he starts waving his hands around - they could have gone against me, but a lot of it is getting people on your side in that situation. I was lucky.They were lovely people and I got on well
with them. My one consolation was that people would say ‘Well Beethoven wasn’t a very good
conductor!’”
After filming Eroica, Hart only had a short break before starting work on his new project, White On
White, with Alan Cumming and Willem Dafoe. But he finds the insecurity of wondering where the
next job is coming from hard to cope with now that he has a family.“Having a family and acting for
a living aren’t always compatible, but it is the only thing I can do.”
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As Unknown